Waiting
by robin baby
Summary: When Gibbs is severely injured during a case, the members of his team have to find a way to get through the time that follows, and eventually have to make a difficult decision. No relation to Hiatus. Very slightly AU.
1. Waiting

**A/N:** Actually, this first chapter was intended to be a one-shot. It seems, however, it didn't like the idea of being out there all on its own too much…

As I mentioned in my summary, the story is slightly AU: Kate and Jenny appear together. No Ziva, though. Would you believe me if I told you it wasn't on purpose and I didn't even realize that little mistake at first? Anyway, I decided to just leave it as it is, because Jenny's way cooler than Morrow ;)

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the characters in this story, they sadly all belong to CBS.

Now enjoy, and please tell me what you think!! Any comment is very much appreciated!

_** Waiting **_

When Tony arrives, he doesn't walk into the room right away, but stops in the doorframe for a few moments. The door is heavy, and it's pushing against his foot as though it wants to nudge him inside. Tony ignores it. Since when does he listen to doors? "The Doors" perhaps…well, not just perhaps. He's got the entire CD collection at home, and even a few original records. Coming to think of it, he's not listened to them for years. He should dig them out again sometime soon, because actually they're quite good…the question is whether his record player still works or already died of dust and old age.

Tony blinks and frowns. _Wow_, he thinks,_ what a couple of sleepless nights can do to the way your brain works._

He shoves the thoughts away, somehow it doesn't feel quite right to wonder about his record player while he's standing on this threshold.

He's not even sure what's keeping him there for so long, actually. Driving here from NCIS Headquarters, it hasn't been his intention to just hang around on the doorstep, watching.

Perhaps he just wasn't expecting this. The intensity of the scene that unfolded in front of him when he pulled the handle. And it _is_ intense, however quiet and still it might be.

The silence isn't much of a surprise, though. Somehow, Tony thinks no one would talk loudly in there. Certainly not Gibbs.

Not Kate, either.

She's sitting in a chair besides the bed, her legs folded underneath her, small feet shoeless. She must have taken off her boots sometime earlier. They are lying on the floor next to her chair, as though she's just kicked them off carelessly.

One leg of her pants has slid upwards, revealing a glimpse of bare skin, but she obviously doesn't care much about that. Or maybe she rather hasn't noticed, because she's fast asleep there in her seat.

She must have been for a while, too, because all of her clothes are in a bit of a disarray, and her dark ponytail is half-undone, strands of hair falling like a fan over her right shoulder and upper arm, which she's using as a pillow. One hand has disappeared somewhere between her cheek and the white covers of the bed, but the other one is resting ever so lightly on Gibbs'. The touch looks so tentative, _uncertain_ almost, as if her fingers had secretly sneaked up to cover his, of their own accord, while she slept.

Unconsciously, Tony bites his lip. That's untypical of him, but then again this image is untypical. It's wrong. Not because of those touching hands. That would, under normal circumstances, just be … well, not very typical. But this is the strangest image, the _wrongest._

The frightening pallor of Gibb's face makes it all wrong, and the surreal shade of white of those sheets, the monitors and the beeping, the IV, the tubes and the scary sound of the respirator.

Finally, Tony pushes himself away from the cold frame, letting the door have its way, but just then someone pulls it open from outside anyway. It's Abby, he can tell by the smell of her perfume. Of course he can.

Right now, he doesn't even turn to look at her or to say hello, though.

He walks over to the bed until he's standing next to Kate, then puts a hand on her shoulder. He's careful to touch her gently, but she jerks awake with a start all the same.

Her first, somewhat sleepy and disoriented glance is for Gibbs, then she looks up at Tony.

"Hey", he says with a small smile, and quietly. No one talks loudly in here. _And why on earth is that?_ Tony suddenly wonders. _So we won't wake him? Fuck, but that's_ all_ we want, for him to wake up._

All at once, he wants to start shouting. He doesn't, naturally. _Four sleepless nights,_ he reminds himself, _that's all your brain currently is._ And anyway it's Kate he's concentrating on now.

She returned his smile vaguely, then she's been staring at Gibbs for a while, whatever it was that's been going through her head then, but now she's looking at Tony again. And out of the blue, there are tears in her pretty eyes.

He's never seen her like this before, and he can tell she's fighting not to cry with all her considerable strength, but her defences are wearing thin. How could they not, after four days of this?

And really, no one would blame her. Everyone's defences are wearing thin at the moment, like someone's been scrubbing them with sand paper ever since all this worrying began.

Tony's about to say something, something DiNozzo-ish, or at least something along the lines of _It's going to be fine_, but, from time to time, he knows even he cannot get the words across convincingly when he doesn't believe them a tad bit himself.

So, it's for once not the time to be DiNozzo-ish, and he just moves closer to Kate and bends down to hug her. He's somewhat surprised at the force with which she reciprocates the gesture.

After all, he's tried to hug her before and it usually didn't turn out too well.

Today, however, she wraps her slender arms around his neck really tightly. It is amazing, in a way, because she feels very small in his embrace, as though the tension of the past 96 or so hours has been eating away at her very substance. For that, she has a pretty firm grip on him, and because the days have been eating away at everyone's substance, they eventually end up slipping to the cold, sterile floor, hypocritically blue-mottled linoleum, as if colour was doing any good in here.

Against the skin of his arms, through the smooth fabric of his designer shirt, Tony can feel the soft trembles that quiet sobs are sending through his colleague's body now. Part of him can hardly believe she's really crying, and doing it in front of him out of all people.

Part of him can hardly believe the whole situation is real. They're the two strongest people he knows in the world (and that's got to mean something, because who would call Abby weak? …well, yeah, or even McGee…), and he can't pretend anymore that seeing his boss like this, having to actually _really_ worry about him, and seeing the strain of their job finally break down on tough little Kate, doesn't scare him. It really does.

He blinks again, for a moment the room swims in front of his eyes. Amazing, the times at which your body decides to go really tired. Ducky would probably lecture him on how there was nothing amazing about feeling you could fall asleep on the spot when you haven't had a moment's rest in days, but he most likely would also agree that _right now_ the timing would truly be pretty bad.

Their surroundings slip out of reality for a brief second or two, and Tony thinks that, maybe, it's all just some bad dream and that's why he can hardly believe all of it.

The tiredness passes as unsuspectedly as it came, everything snaps back into place, and there's still the IV he's been staring at all this time, and the linoleum floor and Kate sobbing in his arms.

Tony just sits there and holds her, for such a long while that his legs start to go numb. He doesn't say anything, nothing to soothe her, certainly nothing to cheer her up. He's not very good at that, and anyway Kate is no one to find consolation in the senseless babble people usually are served in situations like this. Too realistic, too experienced, too professional.

Truth be told, he finds her professionalism sexy as hell (most of the time, at least…sometimes it can be unnerving as well), but right now that is the thing farthest from his mind, and he'd only wish her to be a little less desperate.

He's got no idea how long they've been huddling there, the beeps of the ECG dripping down around them like raindrops, then Abby finally comes in.

She walks over to them, softly chewing her dark-violet bottom lip. She looks perfectly out of place in this bright, quiet room, with her clothes and her piercings and tattoos, like this was some weird movie.

Her lab's bright and full of machines too, of course, but it's hardly the same without the music and her impish cheerfulness. Tony's grateful she's there, anyway.

They exchange a glance, her eyes telling Tony that she'll take care of Kate for a while now. She puts her hands, blood-red fingernails and all her Goth-jewellery, on her friend's shoulders and gently, but decidedly drags her to her feet. Then she slips an arm round Kate's waist and starts to guide her out of the room.

While she does, her glittering eyes (why are they always glittering? maybe it's just the black eye shadow and kohl) wander to Gibbs' face and she looks as though she's about to say something.

But then she just makes a few flying gestures and smiles a blackberry-coloured smile.

_I'll be back to talk to you later._

Tony can't read the movements, though, it even takes him a few moments to realize it was the sign language they sometimes use between the two of them.

It's stupid to communicate through gestures with someone who can't presently see you, isn't it?

But Tony says nothing of the sort, just watches the girls leave. He doesn't think it is stupid.

McGee is at the door right now, holding it open for his two colleagues all gentleman-like. Then he comes in, and he and Tony find themselves places to sit, Tony in the chair Kate's been occupying before, and McGee in another one by the wall.

They're silent for a while, then Tony starts to relate the progress of their investigation to his boss, McGee confirming and complementing the report.

This may well be the first time that Tony's not interrupting the other agent or teasing him every two minutes, and consequently McGee doesn't end up all flustered and lost for words after two minutes. They actually sound like a team right now.

Tony wonders what Gibbs would say to that.

_**TBC**_

Leave me a review, will you?


	2. Adapting

A/N: Here's the second chapter! Pretty short, I know, but after all I'm only just beginning ;)

So enjoy, and tell me what you think!

**_Adapting _**

Rain's been streaming down the window front of NCIS headquarters all day long, as if it wants to drown all of Washington today.

During daytime the steady rivulets that are winding down the glass just blurred the image of the outside world, but now, in the darkness of a late evening, it looks strange. Reflections of the office's nightlights and few lonely desk lamps make the whole front look like a huge Christmas decoration, street lamps and headlights of passing cars outside just enhancing the impression.

Kate's been staring at it forever, looking for her own reflection amidst all the glittering, but it's hard to tell whether she's there or not. Just the way she feels right now.

It's been a long day in the office, trying to work the case the Director assigned them, and not getting anywhere really because, actually, everyone's got something else on their minds, and everyone's trying to fit the team's own case, their _real case _into the schedule of interrogations and research. Shepard's getting impatient, and they know it. They are beyond caring, but it adds to the tension all the same.

Kate catches herself tapping the tip of her pen on her desktop yet again, closes her eyes in frustration and wills herself to stop. It can be annoying to be a profiler sometimes, she can interpret all these subconscious things too well. Then again you probably don't have to be a fully fledged profiler to know that tapping your pen on something continually, chewing on your lip until it starts to bleed, twirling that lose thread on your sleeve until it becomes a knot you'll eventually have to cut off, means that you are nervous. Restless, anxious.

She glances at her watch and sighs. And starts playing with a strand of her dark, glossy hair.

Before she can start thinking about _that_, however, Tony finally emerges from wherever he's been, probably down in autopsy with Ducky. They've discovered another corpse today, and the team's pretending to care where it came from. Kate doesn't want to know what their doctor found out right now, however, and Tony doesn't start about it. Most likely he can't remember anyway.

They exchange a quick glance and grab their things, switching off lamps and computers, and then leave for the hospital.

They're both tired and in need of a bed, but going home is not an option.

"Ducky not coming?" Kate asks as they wait for the elevator to descend.

"He's just tidying up. Said he won't be long."

It's a fake conversation, actually, one whose sole purpose is to eliminate the oppressive, humming silence of the elevator for a few moments.

Of course Ducky's coming. Everyone's always coming. It's not a question.

They cross the parking lot through a misty drizzle, collars flapped up. There's a smell of late autumn in the air, it won't get any warmer again this year.

With a short gesture, Tony tells her they'll take his car tonight, and a few moments later they're on the road.

For the first few days, they used to go each in their own cars, saying it would be far too much trouble to drive back to headquarters after the visit to the hospital, or for one of them to drop off everyone else at their homes, but they've stopped that. They ended up driving right back to headquarters each time anyway, and home for a quick shower and a change of clothes during lunch break, because otherwise they would have been late for work.

Kate's never drunk more coffee in her life. She got all trembling hands sometime around noon at first, but now her body seems to have adjusted. Actually, she's the type of woman that would worry about that and switch to green tea or mate tea or some of that crap because too much coffee's bad for the system, but right now she merely finds herself thinking if Gibbs can drink all the coffee, then the hell she'll do and fall asleep on some Chinese wonder-broth.

She never thought she could get so sentimental, but sticking with coffee because Gibbs does, makes her feel a little better.

A few miles down the highway Tony asks whether she wants to know the results of the autopsy Ducky just did. He sounds as enthusiastic to talk about it as Kate feels to hear it, but she answers "Sure", all the same, because then at least they'll be talking, and _not_ about what they'll do if… .

They make a few half-hearted attempts at guessing what happened to the young petty officer that landed on Ducky's table today, and Kate thinks that if they were to present _those _conclusions to Gibbs, the ground would have to open up and swallow them for shame.

Never mind, though. It's not their case as Gibbs' team, so it's not that much of a case at all.

Arriving at the hospital, they see Abby's car parked a few spaces away from where Tony pulls his Mustang up, and they know McGee should be there too.

Kate fishes a fleece blanket out of the bag she's thrown on the backseat before, she's always cold and spending the night in a hospital chair doesn't warm you up. Tony rummages in the boot for some magazine he promised Abby to bring when they were having some silly conversation the other day. Watching him, Kate actually has to smile.

"You could think we gonna move in there soon", she comments, and Tony chuckles.

"Yeah, I was planning to give up my apartment next week. Just will have to talk that blonde nurse into serving me some food as well."

Kate shakes her head. The blonde nurse. Of course. She'll probably be happy to do that.

_**TBC**_


	3. Emma

**A/N:** Here goes the next one … still very short, I know, but this was just something I wanted to write and consequently had to squeeze in somewhere … so I'm afraid you'll have to put up with it ;)

_** Emma **_

A few days into November, Kate drops by later than she usually does. It's begun to snow, and although the forecast said as much, she wasn't quite prepared for it. Not for such a load of snow, anyhow. It took her forever to shovel the feathery white cover off her car and, most of all, to scratch the ice from the windowpane. To top it all off, traffic was bedlam today. No one expected mud on the streets and no one set off for work early just in case those heavy clouds really meant winter, so everyone got stuck.

Because no one ever listens to the weather forecast.

Now she's here, however, sniffing quietly and fumbling for a tissue as she walks along the hospital corridors. Just as she's about to round the last corner, her reddened nose still buried in her Kleenex, Abby's familiar voice drifts over to her and she decides on a detour to the waiting room. Where she promptly walks in on a scene that leaves her undecided whether to laugh or to cry.

Emma, the head nurse (they know she's called Emma because Tony started running around asking all the female employees of the station for their names on the sixth or seventh day of their regular visits…neither Kate nor Abby nor anyone else would have bothered too much, but of course Tony did. Not that Emma is his type, though. She's a bit too…well, voluminous. He asked nonetheless.) is standing face to face with Abby, her arms folded in front of her chest, an expression on her face that is close to unreadable even to Kate. It could be everything from mild anger to amusement to annoyance to utmost bewilderment. Just the range of sentiments Abby sometimes provokes in people.

Abby, however, looks perfectly relaxed.

"Look, ma'am", Emma's just saying, a notion in her voice that tells Kate the nurse is probably repeating this very sentence for the hundredth time already now, like a mother to a stubborn child. "I really can't let you do this. This is a hospital waiting room, not an internet café."

"Don't ma'am me, alright?" Abby replies first of all, looking a tad irritable now. "Do I look like forty?"

Emma raises and eyebrow that clearly spells _Hardly_ all over her full pink face. Pitch black pig tails, leather collars and plateau boots clearly aren't part of her image of a forty year old woman she'd usually call _ma'am_, but she obviously felt compelled to honour Abby's job at a federal agency.

"Listen," the Goth continues, "I work for NCIS, okay? We hunt down murderers and rapists and terrorists and all the other bad guys, and then we lock them up. Don't you kinda like that idea?"

Emma frowns and looks a bit uncomfortable. She's probably aware of the fact that there's no way out of this, after all she can't very well say she'd rather have the 'big bad guys' all set lose.

"Well, of course I do…", she therefore answers slowly, but doesn't get the chance to qualify her statement, because Abby's quicker.

"There you are!" she exclaims cheerfully, "So if you'll excuse me, I have to get on with my work." With that and her sweetest blood-red smile, Abby spins on her heel and bounces around the low table that's still been littered with magazines and a few matchbox cars the last time Kate was here, and is now the home of two of Abby's notebooks, a docking station for a headset and a few wires.

Abby sits cross-legged on the waiting room floor, her fingers already flying over the keyboard before Emma's even opened her mouth to protest. The nurse stares at her for a few moments, then at the NCIS logo that's attached to everything Abby's brought. Kate can almost hear her thinking something along the lines of _blasted CSI-or-whatever-snobs_, but eventually she seems to resign, probably no quite sure how far she's allowed to go with a scientist in government's pay who is converting her waiting room into a makeshift laboratory.

Shaking her head and muttering something under her breath, Emma leaves the room, her rather massive form almost squashing Kate, whom she's obviously decided not to notice at all.

Kate blinks a few times, but then she can't help a burst of laughter, and the sound of it wins Abby's attention.

"Oh, hi sunshine!" her friend greets her, grinning broadly.

"Turning everything upside down again, Abs?" Kate replies when her laughter's died away.

Abby shrugs and types some more. "Nah, just…", she pauses, as if to consider. "Just not wanting not to be here."

Kate smiles as she watches her Goth friend, finding herself whispering "Yes, I know", in return. Her Goth friend doesn't seem to have heard it, though.

She's staring fixedly at one of her screens, but Kate is pretty sure that not a single number or letter there registers with her. She chews at her bottom lip for a while, then she finally slumps back into her chair and sighs.

"I can't believe how long it's already been", she states quietly.

Kate nods and sits down next to her. "Almost three weeks." She pauses, as if she was turning her calculation over in her head. "Gosh", she says at length, "that sounds horrible."

"Yeah, doesn't it? I mean, a lot of things happen in three weeks." She shrugs. "It's gone five degrees colder, it's begun to snow." Abby begins playing with one of her rings, a silver band bearing a skull with fake rubies in its sockets. "The cinemas are showing new movies, my favourite band's new album is out." She sniffs quietly and delicately scratches the tip of her nose, as if she wanted to disguise her sadness as a sneeze. Her voice drops a bit as she goes on. "God, sometimes I feel like the whole world changed." She looks at Kate with huge green eyes. "How long you think –"

Kate smiles, meeting her friend's gaze with almost apologetic eyes. "I don't know, Abby."

She doesn't think Abby expected any other answer. Of course Kate doesn't know. Of course no one does. Not the doctors, not even Ducky. She keeps hoping she and the team, they're in for a surprise somehow. She keeps hoping that, sometime soon, maybe tomorrow or the day after, they will arrive here or Ducky will walk into their office, and they'll learn Gibbs is awake and everything will be fine.

"I just wonder", Abby's voice brings her back from her thoughts, "what else will happen until he wakes up again. It just feel so strange to see all of these things changing and the year getting older without Gibbs being around."

She exhales deeply and makes a few vague gestures, as if searching for words. "I'm just saying … I mean, I would've told him about that new album three days in a row before it came out and he certainly wouldn't have wanted to hear any of it but I would've played it in my lab still as soon as I got it – " She breaks off and looks down to the floor.

Kate sits beside her silently for a while, waiting until her friend has calmed down a bit. Then she leans in and peers into her face. "Why don't you take a break from work and go tell Gibbs about that CD now?"

Abby gives a quiet, lonely little laugh and answers: "Not sure if I should go bothering him with things he doesn't wanna know about now."

The other woman smiles. "You know what? I think you should. And I do think you're wrong believing Gibbs ever doesn't want to hear what you tell him. No matter what it is, Abs."

_**TBC**_


	4. Tony's Hollywood

**A/N:** Well. you know how it is with some chapters: you start with honourable intentions, and then the story just takes off on its own and goes wild…

However, enjoy and tell me what you think!!

_** Tony's Hollywood **_

NCIS headquarters actually has a lounge with a sofa and nice comfy chairs (cool black leather, of course, but comfy all the same), a TV that's always got CNN on and a fridge with soft drinks in it.

Only, if you're working for Gibbs, you tend to forget about the existence of that room because you simply don't have the time to be in there. Plus, none of the team ever were too keen on finding out what their boss would do with them if he ever found them hanging out there.

Today, however, Kate was in desperate need of a quiet place to her own, and since it's late and most of the employees have left already, the room was the perfect place for her.

She switched off the TV and sat down on the couch, slipping off her boots and hugging her knees to her chest.

Like every other room in the building this one too has a soundproof door and walls, and the silence has something calming about it. It threatens to become oppressive, however, and she knows it. It's hard to ward off that sense of suffocation that comes from too many gloomy thoughts and too many _what if_s and _if only_s.

Maybe she should leave again, but that's when Tony comes to rescue her.

She's got no idea how he knew where to find her, but he did. He plops down on the sofa besides her and watches her from the side. "Hey."

"Hey", Kate echoes, staring fixedly ahead because she can't seem to bring herself to do anything else. They've been through a long day of working on a case that is likely to get them stuck soon, because none of them can manage to stay focussed, and they're constantly trying to work on _something else_ – namely trying to find out what exactly happened almost thirty days ago, and who made it happen.

That means facing the blunt facts, facing possible failures, facing all the _what if_s and _if only_s. Facing Gibbs' absence as well. It's trying, and Kate feels the strain.

"You cold?" Tony suddenly asks beside her, and her head snaps up because she's already almost forgotten again she's not alone here.

Finally, she turns towards him. "Only a little."

She'd meant it as a dismissive reply, and Tony probably understood it just as such, but he puts an arm around her and pulls her closer all the same.

That would be her cue to start some tirade and maybe slap him, but she doesn't, not this time. She knows that if this story ever has a happy ending, and they should ever end up in a situation like this again, she _will _slap him and yell at him, because it's their way. But Tony's embrace is heartfelt and she needs it, and she's also aware that, therefore, this is a precious moment.

It's moments like this that remind her of how much Tony really means to her. Because, if it's serious, then he's the best friend you could wish for.

You wouldn't believe it, but sometimes he knows just what to do.

Kate sighs and frowns, wishing that his presence could just erase the thoughts that cling to her mind like cotton candy to your shirt. Last night keeps replaying in her head, and something she started to ask herself, probably not for the first time, but for the first time consciously.

"What movie is this, Tony?"

She feels him move his head a bit so he can look down at her. "What?"

Kate's well aware that her question won't be making much sense to him at all, but she is too tired to explain all about how Abby's music made her feel like she were in a movie the other night, or how something about that thought had not quite left her since.

Instead, she asks: "The one we're in. You seen it? How's it end?"

She sounds almost sleepy as she sits with her head resting on his chest, voice muffled by the fabric of his shirt and the curtain of her dark hair that falls around her face.

Tony purses his lips, trying to figure out what on earth she's talking about. He thinks that he probably _has_ seen the movie, only which one?

This is strange.

Did they ever have a serious conversation concerning movies, the two of them? Hasn't it always been him reciting some scene to tease her, and her barking at him for teasing her? Or commenting about how everything he seems to actually know something about comes out of a movie?

Then again, when was the last time that Kate let him touch her like this without punching him? Tony frowns, then he thinks he knows what she's asking.

"Nah," he replies, "haven't seen it. Didn't want to." He pauses, staring out of the window for a while. "I don't know how it ends."

Kate sighs, but she doesn't move. He's got the feeling like her body is slowly getting a little heavier against his. Seems like she's really tired.

"You know, Kate," Tony starts again before she falls asleep, "there are only so many types of movies, actually."

Kate's head lifts a little. "Yeah?"

"Mhm, three or four perhaps. And then they're all the same anyway. Different cast, different settings and stuff, but the plot's always the same." She stays still, as if she were expecting some great revelation from him.

"And this," he goes on slowly, "is one of those movies where…" He hesitates, as if he has to make sure he won't put their movie into the wrong one of his categories. "…where everything starts off nice and sunny, and then it goes all wrong. And there are those movies where it ends that way and people go out of the cinema with puffy eyes and looking like they'll never have a good time again in their lives. But _this_ one, Kate…" He waves his index finger through her field of vision as though to make sure the difference between categories a and b registers with her, "_this_ one is one of _those_ movies where they make the audience fell like crap and _then_, when you're already thinking you might as well leave before the end and have a few pints of Jack in the nearest bar because there's no way out of this misery anyway, _then_ everything turns out perfect and suddenly you saw a feel-good movie."

Conclusively, Tony stabs the air with his finger, apparently very satisfied with his little monologue.

Kate, however, remains silent, only after a while she asks: "You sure?"

" 'Course," Tony says, actually sounding very convincing even when they both know what they're talking about at best is wishful thinking wrapped in a funny metaphor.

It feels good, though.

"No exceptions to the rule?"

"Not in film business, Kate. Never heard about the Secret Laws of Hollywood?"

Kate laughs against his chest, and Tony smiles. It's good to hear her laugh, and it's even better to know he made her.

"Well," he says, "the Secret Laws of Hollywood are something that every movie maker keeps to. People say they should actually be called the _Sacred Laws_, you see? Violation is equal to professional death." Kate glances up at him, frowning, but with a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. Tony clears his throat and mirrors her frown, one behind which she can see the mills in his head working to produce more of this wisdom of his.

"You see", he continues after a moment, "at some point the producers and scriptwriters and all those guys realized that they have a responsibility towards their audience. There are certain things you just can't do to people who pay a ridiculous price for a ticket to the cinema. Like … you can't kill James Bond in a Bond movie. Or Frodo in Lord of the Rings … PETA probably would have protested against _that _anyway."

"PETA?"

"Yeah, save the animals from becoming handbags and fur coats. Hairy feet, you know…Or you can't not let Pretty Woman become Mrs. Richard Gere, to name something more classical."

"Classical."

"Okay, Elizabeth become Mrs. Darcy. Classical enough?"

"Pride and Prejudice?"

Tony grins. "Impressed?"

"Hmm. Well … let's say surprised."

"Hey, it's Jane Austen after all."

"Yeah, but I bet you only saw the 2005 one with Keira Knightley." Kate retorts, feeling almost sorry that Tony can't see the smirk on her face.

Her colleague pouts, but decides not to make any reply to that. "Anyway", he goes on instead, "movie makers are allowed to ignore logic. They can't have exceptions as well. So: no exceptions to the rule. Happy ending."

Kate smiles. They are silent for a while as it gets dark above the city of Washington, and around the two agents as well.

"Thank you, Tony," Kate says, sounding very sleepy again.

As she drifts off, she thinks _I hope you're right, you and your movie theory._ And let's not think about all the ones that end differently, because it seems that you can't just let Jack survive in _Titanic_ either.

_**TBC**_


	5. Pastimes

**A/N:** First of all, it's high time I said Thank you to all the reviewers! You make me very happy, you know ;)

What else? Well, just enjoy, hope you like it!

** Pastimes **

One of these days, Kate took a bag to the hospital that she hasn't used in a while. She found there still was one of her sketch pads and a pencil in it, she must have forgotten to take them out. She came upon them later in Gibbs' room, when she was searching for her Blistex lipstick.

And, in a way, it's with Kate like it is with a real artist. When there are paper and a pen within her reach, she can't keep her hands from snatching and using them. Especially not when she can do with something to calm her nerves, and drawing always does.

She's never been one of those, though, who start pouring their hearts into their pictures. She doesn't draw allegories of her feelings, or symbolic compositions that could keep their beholders busy trying to figure out the underlying meaning for hours on end.

At school, she was one of those student who liked the arts and museums, but deemed it utterly pointless to plough through a painter's biography and historical background to dig up that one, exclusively correct interpretation of a work. She's an advocate of the thesis that artists (as well as authors, by the way) mostly just felt like drawing that picture at the time, and didn't intend to bestow some indispensable message upon future generations.

Of course, there may be exceptions. But she's not one of them.

Kate took to curling in a chair in the corner of the room, from where she's got everything in her view, and draws while the others talk in quiet voices.

As the days and nights proceed, she gets to realize some things that she wasn't so aware of before. For example that Ducky always talks to Gibbs as though nothing was wrong at all, and they were really having a conversation. He talks about everything: the weather, football, the congress he went to, something someone else told him, one of the many stories of his past. About the other people at Headquarters, whisky (and whisk_ey_, of course), how the wind would really be too violent right now to take a boat out into Chesapeake Bay. Never about work, never about what happened.

Abby talks a lot about what happened. She often tells him she misses him, how she feels. Sometimes she talks about things Kate doesn't really understand. She talks about parties she goes to as well, about her friends, music, but mostly about things she remembers doing when he was there, or that they did together.

Tony talks about cases, and he jokes a lot. Movies, how could it be different? Most of what he says is rubbish, of course, but somehow Kate suspects that to be his purpose. Talking about silly stuff is not necessarily a bad thing at the moment. It's actually got something comforting, _solid_ about it. It cheers everyone up a little.

McGee doesn't say a lot at all. It's hard to guess how he feels about this whole situation. When it happened, almost a month ago now, he was so mute and wore such a blank expression on his face, that Kate at some point began to worry that he might have been traumatized or something. But it's a lot more likely that, for him, things just went way too fast.

He hasn't been on the team for so long, hasn't even had time to decide on the proper positions of all his pencils at his desk yet, and already something unthinkable happens. Because Gibbs usually seems quite invincible to people who only just met him, and it takes a few extreme situations, up-all-night-weekends at the office and close calls to deconstruct that impression a bit.

In a way, not even Tony and Kate herself have had enough of that to help them really grasp this situation, so how could Probie?

Then again, the sense of unreality that laces through everything Kate has done, heard or experienced since the 15th of October, would also be there if it was any other member of team lying there instead of Gibbs. That's probably just the way it is with people who became a part of your life, whom you got used to and, actually, don't want to miss. Friends, in other words.

Sometimes Kate draws the whole group, sometimes only one of them or two, sometimes it's cartoons of Tony and McGee arguing about some stupid thing, or it's a portrait, or just Abby and Ducky captured on off-white paper while they have a conversation all of their own.

Sometimes she draws something that happened in the past, during all the nights, mornings and evenings they've already spent here.

She never draws any part of the room, though. Furniture – chairs, the small table -, yes. But only edges of the bed, never the machines, the monitors, tubes, medical things. She couldn't.

She was surprised to find the fairly new pad all used up one night when she turned the sheet that proved to be the last one. _If this was a crime scene_, she thinks, they could probably reconstruct it in a flip-book.

She brought a fresh one the next evening.

That was when Abby got hold of one of the drawings. Kate had left it on the table when she and Tony went for some coffee, and Abby took the chance to snatch it.

Returning, Kate found the picture (which she hadn't yet considered finished, actually, pinned to the wall with a small button Abby had been wearing on the collar of her coat. Very inventive. Emma would go nuts.

At first, Kate protested against the display of her drawing, of course, but to no avail.

It's one thing to try and persuade Abby to do something or not to do it. Nice words and a smile can do a lot, and if that fails, Caf-Pow mostly does the job. But when Abby and Tony team up, no one (except for Gibbs, that is) stands a chance.

So instead, of leaving it to Kate to collect the drawings and, at some point, probably forget them in some dusty drawer, Abby took to pinning all the pictures to the wall opposite the bed and around the windows, the old ones as well as the new ones, and now, after a week, the room looks like a gallery.

Dr. Morris, who's been on holiday those past eight days, walks into the room early on Monday morning, and blinks a few times. "I think I'm back in the Louvre", he states as he takes a sweeping glance around.

"Did you like Paris?" Abby asks cheerfully, spinning round to face him.

The medic nods, actually looking quite stunned. "I did. As romantic as everyone says. Who did those?"

"Kate. They're good, aren't they?" Abby slips her arms into the sleeves of her coat, making ready to leave for Headquarters. Unexpectedly, she receives a playful punch from Kate, whose cheeks have turned a soft shade of pink. "They're just sketches, Abby", she tells her, still a bit uncomfortable about everyone being able to see what she draws.

Sketching crime scenes for the sake of details is one thing. Sketching people for no obvious reason and without any necessity is a wholly different affair.

Dr. Morris, however, shakes his head. "No, she's right. I'm amazed." Kate can't help a smile. "Part of my job," she says, trying to sound dismissive.

"Don't you feel like sketching dead people and pieces of evidence is a waste of talent?" Dr. Morris inquires, taking a thorough look at some of the sheets next to him.

"Not at all", Kate replies. "The more talent, if you want to call it that, the more precision, the better for our investigations."

"Well, if you put it that way." Dr. Morris gives her another smile and finally turns to the monitors that show Gibbs' vital functions.

"We've got to go", Abby declares, addressing no one in particular, as it seems. She's fumbling with a button on her coat that's coming lose.

Kate casts a glance at her watch. "You're right."

She steps up to the end of the bed and watches Dr. Morris for a few moments. "I suppose there's no news for us?" she asks, the hopefulness she can't quite banish from her voice sounding silly even to herself.

The medic looks at her with a sympathetic smile. "No, I'm afraid there isn't."

Abby nods. "Yeah, well. Better no news than bad news."

She steps up to the bed once more and gives Gibbs a peck on the cheek that's become her habitual parting rite. "See ya", she whispers, and then grabs Kate's hand, barely giving her friend the chance to wave good-bye at Dr. Morris as she pulls her out of the room and down the corridor.

_**TBC**_

Reviews still very much appreciated, as always!!


	6. Bonnie

**A/N: **Well, this is very, very short and very, very pointless, but the next one's almost finished, so I promise I'll post very, very soon again … as a kind of compensation for this rubbish ;)

Hope you like it a little bit, still ;)

_**Bonnie**_

"Hey, Kate?" Abby's voice comes from the other side of the screens that Kate's been watching for the past ten minutes, trying to make any sense of the numbers, graphs and codes she's seeing.

She leans back in her chair to peer through a gap in between two of them and catches sight of her Goth friend, back turned towards her, working on some skin samples she means to analyse.

"Yes?"

"You believe in God?"

Kate can't say she's not a bit surprised by that question, especially coming from Abby. They've been talking about nothing, really, a few moments ago, clothes or shoes or whatever, and now this. "Well," Kate replies, "yeah. Sure I do."

Abby might have said _hm_ to that, or nothing at all. She doesn't turn around, anyway, and Kate waits in vain for more to come. So, after a while, she asks: "What about you? You believe in God?"

Her friend screws a small red plastic lid onto the last of her test tubes and puts it on a tray. Then she finally faces Kate, rounding the row of monitors in the centre of her lab and plopping down in a second chair next to Kate's. "I wish I did."

"What do you mean?"

Abby shrugs and inspects her fingernails, varnished pitch black, for a while. "You know," she begins at length, "the things I believe in – they're not … I mean –" She interrupts herself, apparently searching for words. "I mean I believe in U.F.O.s, and in extraterrestrial life, in unexplainable phenomena. In science, too, in Ozzy Osborne…" She grins a bit at that last comment, but that's gone when she continues: "I believe in things like saying what you think, being yourself, being honest. But … that's just not the kind of stuff that saves you, is it? It's nothing that can keep you up when you're drowning." She's silent, still staring at her hands.

Kate's not really certain what she should say now, or where this conversation is headed.

"What about your faith, Kate? Does it help? Right now, I mean?"

"It does. It helps to know that there's something, some power that watches over us and that will … make everything right, eventually. In one or the other way."

"And how can you be so sure of that?"

"Ahm – wow, that's a hard question at this time of night, Abs. At all times, actually. If the sisters in my catholic girls' school had their way, I should probably say they taught me the true meaning of the Bible and I can see how true it is every Sunday I go to church. But aside from the fact that I don't do that, that's just not the way. It's –" Kate hesitates and smiles, almost a little embarrassedly. "It's a silly thing, actually."

"Tell me."

Kate purses her lips and looks at Abby. "Okay", she says after a short moment. "When I was a little girl," she begins, "my dad used to travel a lot, he often stayed away over night when he had to attend conferences and go to concerts and business dinners and such things. My mum sometimes accompanied him, and when she did she took me to my gran and I stayed with her.

My gran lived in the country, she had a big house and a garden, and she had rabbits – bunny rabbits. You know, the kind that have a snowball attached to their bums. Extremely fluffy. I had something of a special bond with one of them, and all white one. Bonnie."

"Bonnie the bunny."

Kate nods and grins. "Yep, Bonnie the bunny. I think I had a picture book with a Bonnie-bunny in it or something, hence the name.

Anyway, one time I stayed, Bonnie was ill and I was sure she was going to die. I cried and cried, until my gran told me to get Bonnie and took me to a place in the forest behind her garden. There was a clearing with a brook running along it, paradise, really.

Gran said she always went there when she was really sad or hopeless. It was a sunny day and the wind was blowing, I really remember it well.

And my gran told me that the wind was God's breath coming down to us. I sat there feeling in on my face and listening to it in the trees. I think that's when I started to really believe in God."

"What happened to Bonnie?"

Kate smiles.

"She was hopping around again like the Easter Bunny the next day."

"Hm. That's a nice story, Kate. I like stories like that."

"Yeah, me too." They are both quiet for some time.

"It's kitsch, I know. It's a childish story. But – I believe in it. I believe in Bonnie", she states determinedly, and Abby laughs.

"Right", she replies, "in Bonnie we trust. I can relate to that."

_**TBC**_


	7. Doubts

**A/N: **And here goes the next one, quicker and longer, as promised ;)

**Reni-Maniac, Meg and pryrmtns**: I'm afraid I'll most likely have to disappoint you: I have no idea whatsoever as to what exactly happened to Gibbs.

I'm writing this story because I wanted to examine the others' reactions and behaviour, and the case doesn't have that much to do with that.

I'm horribly bad at making up cases anyway, so it's probably better this way ;)

I do hope you'll keep reading all the same! I really appreciate your reviews!!

Now enjoy!

_**Doubts**_

For half an hour now, Tony has been sitting at his desk, staring at something that only he can see. It's late, so maybe he's just tired, but Kate doubts it.

She can see he's mulling over something, and he's really caught up in it. She says his name just to see if he'll even react, but he doesn't.

Finally, Kate rises and walks up to his desk. "Tony," she tries again, and this time she brings him out of his trance.

He blinks at her a few times, as though his head needs those moments to work out the meaning of her standing there. "Hm?"

"Anything wrong?"

Quicker than she would have believed, he's almost back to his usual self. He gives a shrug and answers: "No, why?"

He's good schooling his face into being perfectly unreadable, but it's only Kate and it's 8 p.m. after a long day, so he can't quite keep the flatness out of his voice.

Kate only cocks her head to one side, knowing he'll get the message. _'Cause I know it._

He searches for the words that'll wind him his way out of it, but eventually he realizes he probably won't get away with excuses.

Tony sighs and rubs his forehead. "Don't know," he mutters, "just this whole … situation."He falls quiet again, not making any impression of intending to say anything else soon, but Kate is pretty sure he will. Tony's unusually … well, solemn right now, and she thinks they're friends enough for her to know that he maybe needs to talk to someone tonight.

Not that he does anything of the sort often. Actually, Kate can't remember any occasion on which he would have _really_ talked to her, but that's the special kind of relationship they have: they never exchanged opinions on serious topics of world politics, or on the meaning of luck, life, love – all the things you usually talk about when you get to know someone well.

They have something else standing in for that, something that just goes on underneath the surface. They joke and banter and argue, but beneath that she gets the message and learns to read him a bit, and she thinks it's the same the other way round.

That's just the way they are, and it's fine.

But tonight is different, just like a lot has been different since Gibbs has been gone.

So Kate just takes the few steps back to her desk and leans against it, waiting. She knows Tony needs his time to open up, but she can give him that.

He takes a minute, maybe two, then he clears his throat and says: "I don't know how to handle this, Kate. I can't figure out what's the right thing to do."

Again, the other agent tilts her head and frowns at him. "Do about what, Tony?"

He bites his lip, subconsciously, and looks away. He looks like a boy when he does that, chewing at his bottom lip with those creases of doubt or thoughtfulness or whatever else on his forehead and something very intense in his clear green eyes.

"The team," he finally replies. "Everything. I mean, look at us, Kate. We're working our asses off, but not on the cases the Director assigns us to. We're not putting half our hearts into those, if at all. And with that bastard who –", he breaks off, making an irritable gesture saying _you know what_. "It's not like we're making that much progress there. We spend almost all our time trying to track him down, but we don't have that much up till now, do we?"

Kate purses her lips, watching her colleague intently. "We're doing our best, however, aren't we?"

"Yeah," Tony replies with a deep sigh. "Yeah, but you know what?" He stares at her questioningly, but Kate slowly shakes her head. "What?"

"It's up to me to make our best good enough, and quite obviously I can't get that right."

Kate shifts her weight from one foot to the other, thinking _Wow, I didn't quite see that one coming._ Right now, she also has to admit that she's having problems following Tony's train of thought. "What do you mean, Tony?"

He studies her for a few moments, searching for something in her expression, or maybe even her posture, as if he's trying to make sure she won't be making fun of the whole conversation in a minute. Kate returns his gaze steadily, and waits.

She knows they're always treading on thin ice when they begin a serious talk, both of them. Mostly, the ice cracks and one of them starts teasing. After all, that's how they are. But she can see he couldn't use that now, and just like she's fine with their usual ways, she's fine with being different now if it helps him.

"I'm team leader, Kate", he eventually explains. "Technically. You and McGee and Abby and Ducky, you can do your work as well as you want, if I don't make the right decisions, then you're working for nothing. And I don't know if I'm not wasting our time with-"

"You think we should stop chasing that guy?" Kate interrupts for the first time, a tinge of disbelief in her voice.

"No," Tony says, "but I think it'd maybe be better if we did." He's well aware she didn't expect that, and that she definitely didn't want to hear it. He sighs and looks at her. "We're not spending enough time on Sheppard's cases. And if we fuck up, it'll have been my decision and my orders, but that'll all fall back on you." For a moment, he's silent, then he adds: "Gibbs would've found a way to fit it all in. I feel like I'm failing, Kate. The team, and Gibbs as well."

"Wow. I never thought I'd hear you saying that." Kate pushes herself away from her desk and walks up to Tony. "Don't be too hard on yourself, Tony", she tells him after a few moments. "No one ever said leading a team was easy."

He smiles and shakes his head. "Wasn't expecting it to be." He pauses and frowns at the pens he's been playing with for those past five minutes. "But I didn't expect having to actually do the job so soon, either. I thought that if I got my own team, whenever, I'd be … prepared."

"Yeah, I think you'd want to be prepared", Kate agrees. "But this is Gibbs, Tony." She leans in, trying to catch the other's gaze. "You weren't thinking it would _not_ be a leap in the dark, were you?"

Tony chuckles and complies to her tugging eyes, looking at her. "Nah, probably not." A moment later, however, he sobers. "Don't think he planned it _this_ way, though."

_No,_ Kate thinks, _probably not. He probably didn't plan for someone to shoot him._

She tucks a stray strand of hair behind her ear and shakes her head. "You're not his senior field agent for nothing, Tony. He certainly considered a scenario like this one when he made you."

"Might have just done it 'cause I was the first on the team."

Kate nods. "Yeah, might have." There's something mocking in her voice, though gently mocking if that's possible, making him glance at her. "But it's Gibbs, Tony. He wouldn't have left you in your position just because of the paperwork it spared him."

Kate sighs heavily when Tony still doesn't look quite convinced. What is it with him? After all she's said, he should be shining like a polished star with all the ego-boosts she's given him.

She's running out of arguments.

"Tony," she finally says, "don't doubt yourself. You've got no reason. I think you're handling this really, really well. And McGee and me – we're right behind you, okay?"

He smiles at her, an honest smile. It's very different from how he usually smiles, not teasing, not one of those triumphant smiles she gets whenever he thinks Gibbs deemed his work better than hers, or one of the acid ones when it's the other way round.

It's just a genuine smile, and she likes it. "Thanks, Kate."

She nods. "You're welcome. I meant it."

As if on cue, the elevator door opens and the pizza boy comes up to deliver the order they made half an hour ago.

Tony pays him while Kate gets her chair from behind her desk, and they settle at Tony's to eat their dinner.

"You know," he says after a few bites, busily rearranging the mushrooms on his slice, "we're gonna so regret this conversation when this is over."

"Yeah", Kate confirms, "we definitely will."

Tony throws her a sideways glance. "Shall we say we'll just forget we ever had it? And agree we'll never hold up what we've just said in front of each other?"

Kate doesn't even look up from her food, nor does she seem to have to give Tony's suggestion too much thought. "No."

Tony grins. "Good."

They eat in silence for a while, Kate watching first with incredulity, then with growing disgust, as Tony keeps pushing round the topping of his pizza slices, and eventually ends up building a mushroom-and-anchovy-tower on his last piece.

When he catches her disdainful gaze, he declares: "The Leaning Tower of Pisa."

Kate purses her lips reproachfully. "Did no one teach you not to play with your food?"

"Oh come on, Kate. That's culture! Italy! I just felt homesick."

The ring of Tony's telephone cuts off Kate's retort.

Tony lets go of his edible work of architecture and wipes his fingers on a tissue.

"DiNozzo?"

Kate turns back to her own veggie pizza, not paying much attention to the conversation Tony's having with whoever still calls at an office at this time. That changes abruptly, however, when she hears the other agent say "What do you mean?" in a strangely wavering, low voice.

She drops her pizza and looks at Tony, with a sudden churning feeling in her stomach.

Tony stares straight ahead, his brow in deep creases. "What are you saying, Duck?" His words sound impatient and tense.

Kate reaches for his arm and squeezes it, trying to make him look at her. Tony obeys, but aside from the worry she already recognized in his voice, she can't read anything in his face.

"Okay," Tony says into the phone, "and what does that mean?" Then he's silent for a long time, obviously listening to some explanation from Ducky. At length, he nods, and Kate vaguely thinks how strange she's always found the fact that people use body language when talking on the phone.

"Yeah, Kate's here. McGee went up to Norfolk 'couple of hours ago, but we'll be there right away. Twenty minutes, okay?"

With that, he hangs up, and Kate immediately tugs at his arm again. "What's wrong, Tony?"

Tony takes a deep breath and rubs the bridge of his nose. "Don't know if I got it all right", he mumbles, sounding rather as though he were talking to himself. "Ducky said something about an embolism. Sounded like it was pretty bad. He said Gibbs was stable again, but …"

"But?", Kate prompts, desperately trying to get rid of that panicky feeling inside of her.

"Don't know", Tony replies. "Ducky didn't say _but_. But I feel like there is one." He gets up and unceremoniously dumps the pizza box in his bin. "Come on, I'll drive."

"No," Kate says distractedly, getting up as well and walking to her desk to grab her coat and handbag, "you drove last time." She wraps her scarf around her neck and fumbles for her car key.

They leave their office and head towards the elevators.

"God, Tony", she whispers, "I think we're losing him."

Tony stops so unexpectedly that Kate almost bumps into him. He turns to her and looks her straight in the eyes. "No, Kate, we're not." She tilts her head and bites her lip, tears glittering in her pretty eyes. It's late and she wasn't expecting this, she's too tired to be a tough woman now.

"We're not," Tony repeats, "because this is the point where the audience thinks everything is really going to hell and they're about to leave the cinema for their killer buzz. You remember what comes next, right?"

She actually has to laugh at that, and at the way Tony keeps poking her shoulder with one finger for emphasis. Eventually, she nods. "Yeah, I do."

"Okay." Tony gently takes her by her upper arms and gives her a soft kiss on the forehead. "It'll be alright, you'll see."

To her surprise, he seizes her hand and they step through the slide doors.

They wait quietly for the elevator to descend, until Kate realizes Tony's eyeing her warily from the side. She looks at him with an amused frown. "What?"

"Not punching me?"

"Why should I?" _Okay,_ she thinks, _that didn't sound like me. _Normally, there's always something to punch Anthony DiNozzo for.

"For taking your hand."

Kate rolls her eyes. "We're not kids anymore, are we?"

Tony seems to think about it. Then: "For kissing you."

"That wasn't a kiss, it was a peck", Kate shoots back immediately. "On the forehead." Because if he'd kissed her in earnest – on the mouth, that is – she definitely would have had to punch him. Or shoot him.

"Peck is just a minimizing word for kiss."

"Tony," Kate says warningly, "what are you getting at? You're not intending to tell everyone you kissed me, are you?"

All she gets as a reply is a perfectly DiNozzo-ish grin, and does punch his arm after all. "Ow." Kate only laughs.

"See, that's what I mean." She says after a while, as they exit the elevator on the ground level.

"I don't see. What do you mean?"

Kate catches the sleeve of his coat and makes him stop and look at her. "You're not Gibbs.", she states. He isn't, after all. "But you're Tony, and you've just made me laugh and you're keeping the team together all the same. Your way."

_**TBC**_

Oh, I almost forgot: No, I'm not gonna tell you what will happen to Gibbs. You do realize I couldn't possibly do that, right? ;)


	8. Decisions

**A/N:** Here goes the next chap, finally. I'm sorry it took me a while to update this time. My computer is currently on vacation, I had to go looking for another one first ;)

Anyway, I hope you still enjoy this!

_**Decisions**_

Precisely half an hour later, Kate and Tony walk down that same sterile, surreally bright corridor for maybe the hundredth time, and this time it was Kate who sneaked her hand into his.

Almost, she wishes that they could stay like that – more open with each other and less afraid to admit something – but although she knows that this is not a game, because neither she nor Tony are pretending, she also understands that this sincerity will give way to banter and keeping your guard up and getting frustrated at times, once this was over.

Over. _You really shouldn't put it this way,_ she tells her brain. She doesn't want it to be over. She wants Gibbs to be well and back at the NCIS again.

They round the last corner and walk up to Gibbs' room.

Ducky's not there right now, but Abby is.

She can curl up like a cat, and when she does she very much reminds you of one altogether, with all the black on her and her white skin, and her dramatic green eyes. She looks a little bit like a cat now, sitting on the edge of Gibbs' bed, huddled and all small and fragile, her legs folded beneath her and elbows propped on her thighs.

She holds Gibbs' hand enfolded in hers, her dark lips are almost touching his fingers, but just almost.

Kate isn't sure whether she even heard them entering. She looks sad, the agent thinks, really sad.

"Abby?"

Her head jerks up, but she relaxes immediately when she sees them. "Oh, hi there! Didn't hear you come in."

"Sorry, we didn't mean to startle you."

"Don't worry," Abby replies. She looks at Gibbs' still face and then lets go of his hand, resting it gently on the white covers. Slowly, she slips off the bed onto her bare feet and manages a smile.

"Where's Ducky?" Kate enquires, and Abby shrugs.

"I don't know, really. He told me but I didn't listen, I guess. Maybe he went to talk to the docs."

Kate nods and exchanges a glance with Tony, then she leaves the room again in search of their ME.

She returns about fifteen minutes later, takes off her coat and drops it on the nearest chair, letting herself sink into the next one.

"Ducky did talk with the doctors," she says, well aware of the others' inquisitive gazes.

"And?", Abby prompts.

"He'll be with us in a minute. He had a look at the results they got from the last tests they did."

"_And?_"

Kate stares at the blue linoleum floor for a whole minute, leaving her two friends with a growing sense of unease. Finally, she sighs and runs a hand through her hair. "I don't know what I've been expecting. That Ducky would tell me _Oh, they got something mixed up, he's fine, he's just sleeping?_" She sighs in frustration. "Really, now."

Abby slowly sits down beside Gibbs' bed. "So he thinks they're right?" she asks, almost whispering, as if she didn't dare say that aloud.

Kate hesitates, then answers: "He said that yes, of course two reanimations during one surgery are just too much, and if his heart just stopped beating again, then-" She breaks off, but Abby finishes the sentence for her: "Then it probably wants to tell us it doesn't want to go on anymore."

"Stop that, you two", Tony cuts into their conversation. "What's up with you? I can't remember agreeing we'd give up."

"No, Tony", Kate tells him, "but it's not really a question of us giving up, is it? We can't really help him, can we? We're not the ones that have to go through all of … this." She nods towards all the machines and tubes attached to Gibbs' still body.

That's when Ducky comes in, walking over to the window straight away, without looking at any of them. The others exchange glances, each of them probably with a big lump in their throats.

The silence becomes close to unbearable at some point, but no one says a word all the same. Finally, Ducky turns around again and walks to the other side of the bed, sitting down in the chair beside it.

He sighs and folds his hands in his lap.

"I know we talked about this," he begins quietly, talking to Gibbs as though there really was nobody else in the room. "I also know we didn't agree on _this._ Or should I say you didn't make me agree on this?" He laughs softly, the way he always does when he's speaking about something sad. He runs a hand through his greying hair, and the gesture seems almost helpless right now.

"Well, now would be a good time to wake up, Jethro."

"Ducky?" Abby's voice sounds a little insecure, and therefore a little alien, too.

It takes a moment to register with the ME, but then he lifts his head and turns it a bit in her direction. "Hm? Yes, Abigail?"

"Can you – I mean, could you … you know, _not _talk to him?"

This makes Ducky turn entirely, glancing up at the Goth with a questioning look on his face.

Abby meets his gaze apologetically. "The only other people you talk to and who never answer you are all-", she interrupts herself, and makes a very indistinct gesture that could mean anything or nothing, instead of saying the word.

Ducky's expression is unreadable for a brief instant, then he smiles. "Sometimes you really get me, Abigail. You should see me with my youngest nephew, by the way. I think he is interested in everything aside from what I say to him. He never replies."

Abby has to laugh. "But you are right," Ducky continues. "I will try telepathy."

"Sorry", the young woman answers, "forget that, it was crap."

"Ducky." It's Kate this time. "What's wrong?"

"Well, Caitlin", he says heavily, "nothing is much wronger than before, actually. But it isn't less wrong either." He clears his throat and frowns. "I spoke with Dr. Morris and Dr. Johnson again and-"

"No way." Kate knew what was to come, and she doesn't even want to hear him say it.

"Caitlin-"

"No, Ducky. You can't-"

"Kate – we talked about this, Jethro and me. We talked about what to do if something like this happened. Because, you know, it is not the safest job you have." He pauses and looks at each of them. "I'm his next-of-kin, it is for me to decide whether or when the machines should be-" Strangely, Ducky doesn't quite seem up to pronouncing it, either. Instead, he just finishes: "Or not."

"And that's a difficult decision, Ducky?" Tony asks, and finds his own voice sounding much cooler than he's wanted.

Ducky only smiles and looks at him sorrowfully. "Yes, Anthony, of course it is. And I am sure you know you would have difficulties too." He's quiet for some time, watching Gibbs' face, but then he turns back to the team.

"The thing is … I know that Jethro trusts me. He trusts me to do what we talked about. What I promised him I would do if a situation like this ever occurred."

"Let them switch those damn things off if you think he won't wake up anymore." Kate concludes flatly. The ME makes no reply, but neither does he need to.

For a few moments, a heavy silence is hanging in the air, until Kate asks, voice altogether changed, down to a whisper that could almost be described as pleading: "You think he won't wake up anymore, Ducky?"

"As a physician, Caitlin?"

"As his friend?"

Ducky looks at her for a while, as though pondering what to tell her. Whether to lie or not.

It's not that difficult at all, really. Guessing what he'll say if he gives them his honest answer. Not that they want to be lied at, after all it would not change a thing.

"If you do that, Duckman," Abby suddenly says into the tense silence, "I swear I'll never speak another word with you." She sounds spiteful like a child, but the way her lips are compressed tells that it's certainly not spite she's feeling here.

For a moment, he just looks at her blankly, as he's gauging whether she was serious or not, but then Ducky smiles and the tension in the room snaps as if someone just cut a thread.

"Oh, good!", Ducky says, "I am glad you said that, Abigail." He turns to Gibbs. "I really cannot risk that, I am sure you would not, either." He pauses, but suddenly something seems to startle him. Turning to Abby, he says: "Oh, excuse me, Abigail. I forgot I promised not to speak aloud anymore." He rises and picks up his coat. "Anyway, I need to go now, my mother –" His words are cut off by Abby throwing her arms around his neck and hugging him so tightly he actually gasps.

Recovering, he softly pats her back. "It is alright, Abby. Don't worry. I won't do anything –"

He disentangles himself from the young woman and smiles.

His sentence wasn't finished, but no one expects he' going to. They know what he'd like to say, and know just as well that he can't. At least not if he wants to stay honest with them.

So he just nods good-bye, picks up his hat and leaves.

Abby sighs with relief and smiles to herself as if she's very satisfied with the way her tactics worked.

Kate sits mutely in her chair and watches the two, her expression unreadable, and Tony still stands beside the door, hands in the pockets of his coat.

For passing moment, it seems odd that they should all be gathered here like this.

A cop from Baltimore, a forensics expert from New Orleans and an ex-Secret Service agent who worked in Air Force Once. McGee and Ducky as well. A techie from MIT and a physician from Britain. It sounds like a peculiar, incongruent mix, but in a way Gibbs threw them all together and it fit.

Tony's always found it strange that you never really know how solid a relationship is until something serious happens.

And he wonders if Gibbs knew that things would ever turn out like this between all of them: that he and Kate would (actually) get along perfectly, that Catholic Kate would strike up a friendship with Abby, that McGee would cope with the team's teasing and Gibbs' own strictness. First of all, that they would eventually all trust each other. At first sight, one wouldn't have believed that this would truly work.

But somehow, they ended up here. Obviously.

Tony chews on his bottom lip, something nagging on him. He knows they will eventually have to bring the subject up, and the sooner the better. So he makes up his mind.

"We need to talk," he says, and Kate and Abby both look at him. Tony gestures towards the ECG, the respirator, and all the other stuff around Gibbs' bed. "About this."

He's met with questioning gazes, but resists the urge to say _You know damn well what I mean._ Instead, he plops down in a chair, taking a deep breath.

"It's Ducky's decision," he continues, "but he lets himself be influenced by us. Probably not forever, but –", he pauses, searching for the right words. "I don't know if what we're doing is fair. Towards Gibbs. He doesn't like it if things aren't done his way." He smiles, uncharacteristically sad.

"Tony!" Abby sounds unbelieving, and the look in her eyes says the same.

"He's right, Abby," Kate cuts in. "Two doctors and Ducky have been telling us almost from the beginning that the chances he'll wake up again are minimal. We keep telling them we want them to wait. But perhaps –", she pauses, and shrugs. "Perhaps we're really waiting for something that'll never happen."

"Kate – things you don't believe will happen, _do_ happen."

Kate smiles wistfully and meets her friend's gaze. "Miracles?" she asks.

"Yeah! They do!"

"No, Abby. I don't think so. Things _just happen_. This way or the other. There are no such things as miracles. Not even when the wind blows."

_**TBC**_

Reviews, please!! You know an author can never get too many of those ;)


	9. A Black Guitar

**A/N: **Okay, I just found this chap and can't really remember where I wanted to put it. Originally, that is. I'm having the feeling that I'd meant to come a lot earlier than this in the whole story, but it seems I got something mixed up here.

Well, I hope you think it fits in okay all the same. Enjoy!

_**A Black Guitar**_

Kate never knew that Abby plays the guitar.

It's almost one in the morning, visiting hours are long over. The doctors and nurses, however, have stopped bothering – or let's say they gave up trying to kick that bunch of people out after Tony at one point said something about this being a Navy hospital, and "how the hell do you figure we're supposed to fit your visiting hours into our working day?"

Either it had been that (coupled with Tony's amazing ability to make his words sound like everyone apart from an NCIS agent is nothing but a pathetic, pitiable and utterly unimportant lifeform), or probably just the realisation that nothing would make even one of them move an inch out of Gibbs' room while there wasn't a dead Marine or a mortal threat from Jenny Shepard.

And since neither is the case right now, they're all here, wide awake, and even McGee, who was nodding off in his chair a few moments ago, has been watching Abby with big, surprised eyes since she pulled out a black, polished acoustic guitar from behind her chair.

"Abby," Kate slowly begins after she's quite convinced herself that, judging from the others' faces, no one knew about this, "how come you never gave us a concert?"

The Goth smiles down at her fingers that pluck the strings almost tentatively, luring out a row of soft, quiet, vibrating sounds. "Never been comfortable with audience", she says, "I'm no good."

She gives Kate a somewhat apologetic glance and shrugs, but then she returns to tuning her instrument.

It surprises Kate, this shyness, because if she'd had to imagine Abby with a guitar, it certainly would have been with an electric one on the stage of some Goth club, going wild with some girls' band.

They all just sit and watch while Abby seems to get all lost in the creation of a harmonic scale. One by one, the keys begin to fit together, like acoustic puzzle pieces.

"Only Gibbs", Abby suddenly says into the dying echo of a chord.

Everyone looks a bit confused as they try to follow her train of thought (or maybe island-hopper-plane of thought?), and she seems to realize that. She puts her flat hand on top of the strings to silence them, and glances at the others, smiling a sad, scarlet smile. "Only Gibbs ever heard me play."

There are still puzzled faces staring back at her, so she explains: "Down in my lab. I use to practice when I'm still waiting for a result late at night, and since Gibbs is almost always the only one who works as late as I do…he caught me once." She grins, then she returns to playing a few unrelated chords. With a shrug, she adds: "He said he liked it. I believe anything he says, so I played a few times when he was there."

A few minutes later, Abby could make no one believe she can't play anymore. Kate is surprised at the tranquillity of the song, given what kind of music her friend's usually listening to at work. Then again, there's probably no way whatsoever to produce something like that on an acoustic guitar…

At first, it's only been random keys coming from the black instrument, but then, slowly, they began to for a melody, like someone were picking up lose strings and weaving them into a pattern. There's a little transformation taking place in the room, actually. All the tubes and monitors and digital numbers seems a little less real and frightening, the beeps of the ECG drowned out by Abby's song.

The flowing melody takes Kate on a little journey back through the past days, days and nights that are flowing into each other just like the chords, until she can't tell them apart anymore. They've all been the same in a way, all tiring and full of worry and all dominated by a strong sense of impossibility. Sitting here, she thinks that it's really impossible that this is happening, that it came this far.

It's a scenario they all must live with, of course. That one of them, of the team, could be severely hurt. Killed. It's bearable as long as it's a scenario. It's like a stone in your stomach, like something that's always sitting in your neck like a little ghost, but it's bearable.

She finds she never believed it could truly happen. And the low lights that burn at nighttime instead of the bright halogen lamps of the day, and this gentle, somewhat _confident_ music make her think that, maybe, it is not that real at all, and she'll soon wake up. Like Abby's song is the closing title of a movie, and in a moment they'll all get up from their cinema seats and drive home.

Then, Abby starts to sing. She's got an incredible voice, with a slight raspiness to it, all warm and cosy like honey and milk.

Kate doesn't even realize she joined in until the song ends, and Tony is looking at her, first with something close to surprise in his eyes, then with a wide grin plastered across his face.

"Hey, never would have believed _that_ if you'd told me back in the shower of that fighter pilot's house."

At that, Abby's eyes go huge with amusement and Kate shoots DiNozzo her best death-glare.

"Don't you dare start about-"

"What?", Tony cuts her off, "Your legs?"

If possible, Kate's eyes narrow even further. She looks all prepared to jump at her colleague's throat and bite his nose off. But Tony just flashes her an absurdly sweet smile. "But you know me, Agent Todd. I would never do such a thing."

"Yeah", Kate mutters, somewhat pacified, but still eying him suspiciously, "I do know you."

On the other side of the room, Abby starts a new song. "C'mon, Kate, you know that one?"

"I'm not gonna sing any more," Kate declares. If she didn't know better, Abby would say she's sulking. "'Course you will, come on, don't leave me hanging!"

"When Tony's gone", her friend says, sounding quite determined and still glaring daggers. Her cheeks actually have acquired a slight blush, leaving everyone pretty curious about that whole story involving her legs and a shower. And Tony.

Abby gives a huff, frustrated at the lack of a duet partner. "Arr, Tony!"

"What?"

"Your fault."

"Hey…!"

The hours slip by as Abby goes on and on, growing more and more comfortable with all the team listening. Kate recognizes most of the songs, thinking that, looking at Abby (even knowing her), you really wouldn't believe most of them to be part of her repertoire. But then again it's Abby, she's always good for a surprise.

When the last song ends, it takes everyone a few moments to come back out of whatever they've been thinking about. Judging from their faces, though, it's on the whole not been the most heightening of contemplations.

Abby sits there word- and motionless for an entire minute. She stares at the floor, her right hand hovering above the strings, the left one still forming the last chord. Then, suddenly, there are tears in her eyes, she squeezes them shut and the droplets fall. Her cherry-red lips compress until there's almost no trace of the colour left. She doesn't want to cry.

"Abby?" Kate's voice is soft and concerned as she makes to get up, but her friend only shakes her head. She seems to master her emotions and as she finally lets go of her guitar's neck, she looks up, eyes glittering with moisture, but tears run dry.

"I just thought…", she begins, but interrupts herself again before saying what. She bites her lip, and after a short silence starts to pack away her instrument.

"You thought you might be able to wake him up", Ducky suddenly concludes the sentence she's left hanging in the air, and everyone looks at him. Abby, however, just nods as she zips up her guitar bag.

The ME abandons his post by the window and comes over to her. "Abigail," he says softly, putting an arm around her. But then he is quiet for a long while, making everyone wonder whether he intended to say anything else.

When Abby glances up at him, he smiles. "Maybe you should keep your guitar here instead of your laboratory for a while."

It's only then that they grow aware of Emma standing in the door, because she's been clearing her throat – discreetly, but unmistakably. She's got a strange expression on her face as she eyes Abby's guitar, one that's probably meant to say something like _First computers in my waiting room, and now this?_

But the somewhat dreamy look in her eyes, accompanied by the smiling faces of the two night nurses that are squeezing in the door frame behind her (they probably don't often get impromptu concerts during their shifts) tell a different story.

Emma seems to always feel compelled to do things, like calling Abby ma'am – or just point out this new violation of the hospital's rules just for duty's sake.

Tony frowns at the little congregation in the doorway. "Hey," he softly calls at them, "visiting hours are over!"


	10. Merry Christmas

**A/N:** I know, this one is a little late in terms of seasons, but I hope you'll forgive me that.

Enjoy and do leave me a review!!

**_Merry Christmas_**

It's five to five in the evening, the host has been talking about the fairy-tale snowfall and how happy we all are about it for half an hour or so, the only change being Annie Lennox and singing about how happy we all are about the snow.

Kate is in her bedroom, trying to decide which pullovers she'll take. Eventually, she settles for a red one and her favourite cream-coloured cashmere one, folds them neatly and stows them away in a black travel bag. In her mind she goes through the list of things she needs to take to her parents', already now feeling like she's forgetting half the stuff.

Well, never mind, she thinks as she drops a pair of high heels on top of the pullovers. It's Christmas after all, her family will forgive her being a little forgetful. And she can't bring herself to feel a lot of Christmas spirit anyway this year, so she doesn't really care if that particular shade of red matches the eye shadow she packed without really looking at it.

Then again, her Mum might just be a tad pissed this year.

Kate called her a few days ago, telling her she wouldn't have the time to go shopping herself, so _could _you_ please go and get the presents for Mary and Joe and Jonathan?_

Kate adores her niece and nephews, but this very Christmas she was glad she'd remembered that there was such a thing as presents at all.

Margaret Todd, however, was not too pleased with her daughter's behaviour, she deemed it careless.

Kate had been obliged to listen to a quiet yet reproachful lecture about how her mum thought she got too caught up in her job, how she had to take care not to forget her private life and her family over it. How her mum could see her calling next year saying she didn't have the time to come at all and how disappointed the kids would be.

Kate had been silent all the while and had just said "Don't worry, Mum, I won't forget you", when it was over.

Now, standing in the semi-darkness of her bedroom, she feels bad about it all. She knows she's made her mum sad because Margaret fears that, eventually, all her children will stop showing up for Christmas, for Thanksgiving, for birthdays, like Kate's oldest brother has done.

Slowly, she picks up the phone from where she has dropped it earlier after a brief chat with a riend, and sits down on her bed.

She knows it wasn't fair. She knows she hasn't called half as frequently as her mum would have wanted her to lately, and she knows that when she did call, she wasn't too attentive to what her mother told her. She never explained, either.

She dials a number, but then she hesitates – and deletes it. Then she dials again. "C'mon, Kate", she mutters irritably. Acting like a school girl.

After three dialling tones, there's her dad's voice on the other end of the line. "Todd?"

Kate swallows. "Hey Dad, it's me", she says softly.

"Katie! Hello, girl! How are you?" He sounded pleasantly surprised at first, but already she can hear a bit of concern creep into his deep, smooth voice.

"I'm fine Dad, thanks."

"Why are you calling, Katie? Shouldn't you be on your way already? Don't tell me you can't come, your mum will go crazy if you do."

Kate chuckles and shakes her head. "No, Dad, everything's okay. Of course I'm coming. I'm just done packing, actually." She gives her bag a sideways glare, as if to dare it to object to her use of the word _done_.

"Oh," she hears him say, sounding relieved, "good." They are both silent for a few moments, something that she's always found very awkward – silence on the phone has something very superfluous about it.

"Katie? Is something wrong with you?"

Kate closes her eyes, shaking her head although, of course, her father can't see that. "No, I'm fine." She pauses, _Have yourself a merry little Christmas_ drifting over from the kitchen radio. She starts chewing her bottom lip, biting at the chapped skin she always gets during winter. _Stop it,_ she tells herself,_ or the lipstick will look crappy tomorrow._

Kate takes a deep breath.

"Dad?"

"Yes?"

"Did Mum tell you about the presents for Mary and the boys?"

"That you asked her to get them for you?"

"Yeah."

A grumble on the other end, her dad's special way of confirming something. "She did." Kate sighs and starts fumbling with a corner of her silk plaid. "She angry about it?"

"No, not angry. Just surprised, I guess. And a bit worried. You know her."

Kate laughs softly and nods. She is silent again, frowning.

"You know, Dad," she says after a while, "you don't have to worry about me. Next year, I promise I'll go shopping myself again."

Her father doesn't say anything in return, but waits. She knows he's figured out there's something else she wants to tell him by now, and since he does, Kate reckons she can just as well stop beating round the bush.

Still, she has to clear her throat before she begins.

"My boss has been in hospital for a little over two months now. I spent a lot of time there, you see? He's in a coma," she says, and then breaks off abruptly. She realizes that she's never spoken it out so clearly before, and the sound of the words silence her.

"Princess," she hears her father say after a few seconds, "why didn't you tell us?"

Kate smiles. "Because you would have worried about me, and Mum would have worried and called me all the time, and she would have messed up her cranberry cookies and put the wrong name tags on the presents and it would all be big chaos instead of happy Christmas now."

Her dad laughs. "Yeah, well, you're probably right."

"So…don't tell her, okay? I just wanted …", she trails wondering herself what exactly it was that she wanted. "I just wanted you to know that if I'm a bit low tomorrow, it's not because I don't want to be with my family on Christmas Day anymore, 'kay?"

"Okay, princess, I know that. Come home now and I'll give you a big hug."

"That always helps!" Kate replies with a laugh. "See you later, Dad."

"See you later, honey."

"Dad?"

"Yes?"

"I…I'll be later tonight, is that okay?"

"Of course. Drive safely."

They hang up and Kate drops the phone on the bed. She throws a glance at her travel bag. It's sitting next to her with its mouth wide open, as if to say _Come on, pack me! There's a whole lot of things that are still missing in here!_

"Shut up," Kate replies and determinedly pulls the zipper. She hadn't intended to say that last part to her dad. She hadn't been planning on being much later that 7. Apparently, however, something in her is having other plans.

So, ten minutes later, she's in her car, turning the ignition. It's 5:30 now, it's still snowing like crazy and the traffic will probably be nuts. "Driving home for Christmas," Kate sings mockingly, not quite hitting the tone.

The route to the hospital, however, is passable. There's a traffic jam downtown, but she gets through alright and half an hour later, she's there.

The team said good bye, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays earlier in the office, but she knew Tony wanted to come round since he's obviously not going to see his family, and Ducky said something about tagging along.

In a way, though, Kate still isn't too surprised to find the rest there as well. Everyone seems to still have a little time before whatever they have planned for tonight, so, eventually, they're all sitting in their chairs in Gibbs' room again, chatting and trading embarrassing childhood Christmas Stories.

It's a good way to cover up the low feeling they've all got. Neither Kate nor Tony or McGee can quite help thinking about last year's Christmas.

They'd just finished a case, and would have had every right to leave the paperwork until after the holidays, but Gibbs would have none of that. He told them to get through with it while all the details were still fresh in their heads.

Not that he wouldn't have had a point there. They both knew what a pain it could be, having to go through all the evidence anew just to put it all together correctly in your memory again. Only it had been Christmas Eve, and paperwork always took a lot longer than you expected.

Eventually, of course, it had all been done and, somehow, the day had then ended with an impromptu Christmas party, with a bottle of champagne Kate had found in her desk (and whose origin she couldn't quite remember at the time) and ice cream from the parlour round the corner, that was owned by an Indian couple and consequently didn't close on Christmas.

Abby had been there at the time, but Ducky and McGee both heard the story for the first time and found Kate's recollection of Tony singing _Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer_ exceedingly funny.

"It was that champagne of yours," Tony mutters, feigning hurt. "God knows how long you'd already kept it in there."

"Oh no, DiNozzo," Kate laughs, "it was the fact that you had champagne at all! One glass, and you're done with."

Tony grins mischievously. "Wanna bet?"

Instantly, Kate is all alert. "No," she replies determinedly, "I'm not playing drinking games with you, Tony."

"Pity."

Around nine p.m., there's a quiet knock on the door (a very superfluous one, actually, because even a bat wouldn't hear it if someone knocked on that kind of door from outside, which means the door's open already anyway).

Five heads turn, and the team finds Emma standing there, looking at them.

"Woah," Tony says, "now don't tell us you've got different visiting hours on Christmas Eve."

Emma scowls at him, but it's a somehow good-natured scowl. "I wasn't intending anything of the sort, Special Agent DiNozzo." she tells him. She shifts her weight from one foot to the other, poinsettia-red clips sparkling in her mouse-brown hair as she moves.

Abby suppresses a giggle at that. She finds the sight of a relatively large woman who adores putting her hands to her hips and telling someone off for whatever, topped off with a few glitter-hairpins that would look sweet on a five-year-old girl, immensely amusing.

"Actually," Emma continues, "I wanted to ask all of you whether you care for a cup of hot chocolate." She shrugs. "It's Christmas after all."

They all look at her with surprise rather clearly written over their faces, and Emma smiles. "That is, if you think you can leave him alone for long enough", she says with a nod towards their boss.

The team exchange glances, and eventually Ducky speaks for them. "Thank you,that would be wonderful. I think we could all use something warming."

Emma nods and gives a deep, throaty chuckle. "He'll be sick and tired of your company anyway when he wakes up." she declares as she walks out.

One by one, they file out into the corridor behind the head nurse, Abby giving her boss a tiny wave as she slips through the door, and follows past a row of door into a room that turns out to be the nurses' room.

It's quite spacious, naturally equipped with a high-tech coffee-maker, a stove and a microwave, a sofa and a table with a number of chairs around it.

The fridge is covered with children's drawings, postcards and photographs showings rosy baby faces and happy families. Now, of course, there Christmas decoration everywhere as well, red and green and gold, candles, plastic mistletoes and everything else that's part of the programme.

Emma motions for them to have a seat around the table and starts to make the chocolate she promised them.

The team sit in relative silence for a while, taking in their surroundings and exchanging one or the other amused glance.

Then, however, steaming mugs are placed in front of them, followed a short while later by small plates with apple pie.

"Oy," Abby says with big green eyes, "feels like I'm home for Christmas! I think I love you, Emma!"

The nurse smiles and pats the goth's head. "Anything for you, sweetheart."

She moves on down the line of chairs, and as she puts a baby blue plate in front of Tony, she gives him a big, smacking kiss on the cheek. Then she scuttles away with a very naughty, self-satisfied giggle. Tony sits there frozen, his eyes gone from normal to the size of saucers within an instant.

Opposite from him, Kate doubles over with laughter and McGee fails miserably in trying to save himself from the slaps that are surely to come later as a revenge for his gloating.

Tony slowly turns to Abby, who's sitting next to him and looks at him with a fat grin on her blood-red lips.

"I feel like that thing from Star Wars just sucked me in," he hisses, and Abby arches her eyebrows.

"The earth-worm-thing on Tatooine in Episode VI?", she asks innocently.

"Yeah, that's the one", Tony replies miserably. A moment later he's pointing a finger at Kate, glaring at her. "Don't you dare!" he tells her, but receives only a mischievous grin in return.

Kate's taken out her sketchbook and is busily drawing the hilarious scene that just passed.

Tony lets his hand sink in defeat, only too well aware that he's fighting a losing battle here. None of them (probably not even Ducky) will ever let him hear the end of it, and they'll all conspire to save the evidence.

"You'll pay for that", he growls at Kate and viciously stabs his apple pie with his fork, using it as a substitute target for his frustration. (He can't very well stab a colleague with a fork, after all.)

"Mhm", Kate replies merrily, "but that's definitely worth it."

Tony glowers at her for a few minutes, but when Kate gives no sign of being intimidated, he gives up and concentrates on his pie instead.

"Ah, Tony", Abby grins, "no more naughty comments about girls eating chocolate when we're upset, you hear me?"

Tony only grunts in return and Abby sympathetically strokes his hair. "It's alright. We love you still."

Emma, in the meantime, switches on a small portable CD player and puts on Christmas songs, and Kate begins to hum along without really being aware.

Everyone seems lost in their own thoughts for a while until, suddenly, Tony's head comes up again from his plate and he glances over at where Emma's busy with some paper work.

He's got a look on his face as though he's just worked something out.

"Hey, Emma!" he calls, "Do we have to hear that one song over and over again?"

"Yes, Agent DiNozzo," Emma replies without turning around to face him, "Because it is Christmas Eve, it's a Christmas song and I love it."

"Hm. Fine", Tony says, dropping his fork on his plate and rising from his chair, "Care for a dance, then?"

Kate, Abby and McGee's heads simultaneously snap up and they stare at their colleague, the two women with something like amused shock, and McGee with utter disbelief written across his face.

Emma peers at Tony over her shoulder, quite suspiciously. When she sees the young agent standing there with his arms spread out and a smile you could actually describe as nice (and rather handsome, which she definitely can't deny) on his lips, she shrugs good-naturedly. "Well, why not", she says and puts away her pen, the nurses' duty roster for the next week a matter of minor interest for the time being.

Tony gives a slight, yet very gallant little bow and they begin to waltz through the nurses' room to the jingling of a kitschy Christmas tune.

The others watch and giggle for a while, and all of a sudden, Ducky stands up as well. "Caitlin," he says solemnly, holding out a hand to her, "would you like to dance?"

Kate stares at him in surprise for a few seconds, then she grins and accepts the hand he offers. "It would be a great pleasure, Dr. Mallard."

Ducky nimbly guides her to the makeshift dancefloor, and a short while later Kate finds herself mourning (as she's done on one or the other occasion before) the fact that men _her_ age just don't seem interested in learning to dance like _this_ anymore.

McGee, meanwhile, throws Abby a worried, or maybe rather horrified glance, but the goth pretends not to notice in the least. Eventually, however, she can't help it anymore and her blackberry mouth splits into a broad grin. Looking at McGee, she asks: "What, Timothy? Scared to ask me? Or would you rather I'd find us a cosy little broom cupboard or a vacant bed?"

McGee gapes at her, going a fiery red within a matter of moments. "Ah…uh, no, I…ahm…", he splutters out, eyelids fluttering rapidly the way they often do when he's extremely stressed. Abby laughs and finally takes pity.

"It's alright, McGee, relax", she tells him, slapping his arm playfully. "Just jokin'."

He gradually returns to his normal colour and while he recovers from his shock, Abby props her chin on her forearm and idly turns the pages of Kate's sketch pad.

"Oh, look, Tony and Emma!", she exclaims after a while, studying the portrait of the two dancers. "Wow, she did that quickly, didn't she?"

"Yah, she's amazing", McGee agrees.

Abby purses her lips and shuts the book. "Think I wanna go back to Gibbs," she says at length, straightening in her chair. "You coming too?"

McGee nods. "I'll come and say good bye. I'll miss my plane if I don't get going soon, and my mum will kill me if that happens. Not to speak of my gran."

The two rise and quietly slip out of the room, leaving Tony to his flirt with Emma and Kate and Ducky to their soft conversation.

"Why," Abby asks as they walk back down the corridor, "is she a wolf?"

"Huh?"

"Like in Little Red Riding Hood!", Abby explains. Then she lowers her voice and speaks in a deep grumbling tone: "The better so see you, Timothy!"

McGee tuts and rolls his eyes. "No", he says. And, after a pause: "She's way too senile to remember fairy tales."

"Oh", Abby says, and they both burst out laughing. "It's not funny, McGee.", Abby scolds when she's calmed down again.

"No, but it's not that bad either. She's happy, anyway."

They stop in front of Gibbs' door and the goth turns to face McGee. "Well, she's got a sweet grandson after all, right?" She grins as her friend blushes a bit and then kisses him on the cheek. "Merry Christmas, McGee. I'll see you when you're back." She waves at the door behind her. "I'll let you say good bye." And with that, she heads further down the hallway towards the ladies' room.

After a few steps, however, she turns once more. "Ahm, McGee?"

"Hm? Yeah?"

"Or maybe you don't…", she hesitates and wrinkles her nose, the way she sometimes does when she isn't quite sure what so say. "Don't say _Good Bye_. Say _See you_, or something like that."

McGee smiles at her. "Don't worry, Abbs."

_**TBC … still**_

Well? Still like it?


	11. Girls' Night In

**A/N: **And another one without a plot ;) Enjoy!

Meg, loz and Trumpet Lover: thank you so much for all your reviews!! I hope you stay with me!

_**Girl's night in**_

The knocking at her door is persistent.

After five minutes, Kate can't help but draw the conclusion that whoever's being so relentless, probably doesn't interpret her lack of reaction as absence. _What?_ she thinks, decidedly annoyed. _It's too late for Happy New Year, and I won't buy anything._

Knock, knock. With a sigh, she gets up from the couch and pads over to her apartment door.

"Yes?" she calls, unable to keep her irritation out of her voice.

"Kate? It's me!" comes Abby's answer from the other side. "You 'kay in there?"

Kate closes her eyes and groans. She should have known.

Couldn't it have been the washing machine salesman? Or the old crone from next door, who keeps muttering about how Kate often comes home late (or, which is far worse, not at all), and why she thinks that is? Shooing _her_ away wouldn't have given Kate a bad conscience.

Abby's a whole different matter.

"I'm fine," she calls back through the door. There is a pause, then: "Let me in?"

For a moment, Kate considers saying she's got a bad flu or something, but then she sighs and unlocks her door. She can't very well leave her friend standing on her porch just because she doesn't feel like company.

She opens and manages a smile. "Sure, sorry."

"No problem," Abby says as Kate lets her in, but she sounds a bit confused all the same.

Kate closes her door and leads the way into the living room. "Can I get you something to drink?"

"Nah, thanks", Abby answers, and before Kate can go on with the small talk, she asks: "Hey, what's up?"

Kate just shrugs as she gestures for Abby to take a seat. "Nothing. What makes you think something's up?"

Abby chews on her dark crimson bottom lip, almost as though she's not quite certain whether she should answer that question. "You haven't been in the hospital for three days now."

Kate frowns and looks at her with a strange expression on her face. "Well, I wasn't aware that was a problem," she shoots back, sounding a lot more defiant than she intended to.

"Woah!" Abby raises her hands in a placating gesture. "I didn't mean it that way, Kate. It just … I mean, you were there all the while when you had the time until now, but you didn't show up all weekend so we were worried that maybe you were ill or something."

Kate closes her eyes and takes a breath. She sits down on the armrest of her sofa, feeling foolish and sorry for snapping at Abby. "I'm fine. Sorry, I overreacted."

Abby shrugs. "That's alright. If you tell me what's wrong, that is." 

She receives a somewhat tortured glance in return, one that seems to say _Do you have to ask? Can't we just drop it? _ Abby gets the meaning well enough, but she didn't come to be fobbed off on _I'm fine_.

She pins Kate down with a rather stubborn glance, and cocks an eyebrow at her.

Eventually, Kate sighs in defeat. "What about I make us a cup of tea?"

Ten minutes later, the two of them are sitting at Kate's kitchen table, both a steaming mug in their hands.

"How is Gibbs?"

Abby laughs quietly. It's a strange question, really.

Not that that was the first time someone asked it. It's just a pretty pointless question, really. The answer always is the same, and if there was something else to say this time, then Abby wouldn't be sitting there all calm, drinking tea. She would either be crying or jumping for joy. And Kate would already know, of course.

"No changes," she replies softly. Standard answer.

Kate doesn't really seem to hear it, though. She's staring blankly into her cup, and after a while she shifts uncomfortably, frowning.

"I just couldn't go to the hospital, Abby," she suddenly says. "After Friday I just …" She breaks off and shakes her head.

Her friend watches her, puzzled. Silence, laced with some stupid song from the radio, stretches out, until Kate looks up and goes on: "We got him. The guy that shot Gibbs."

Abby smiles, a smile that could be both wistful and bitter. "Yeah," she says, "you got him."

"_We_ did", the other woman repeats softly, but the comment sounds distant, as if she's already thinking about something else.

Abby drops her head, trying to peer into Kate's face. "You don't seem too overjoyed."

" 'Course I am," Kate replies, but it sounds like pure platitude.

"But?"

Kate meets her gaze, but she doesn't answer for a long while. She just sits there with her chin propped up on one hand and stares at Abby as if the _But_ stood written in her green eyes.

At last, she shrugs and massages her temple as though she has a headache. "We worked so damn hard to track him down," she says. "We worked the days through, every day, Monday to Sunday, and then we spent most of the nights in the hospital. It's a wonder no one's fallen asleep on the spot yet. Or has gone crazy, for that matter. I would never have worked that much for any other case. God, not even Gibbs would have demanded that. But I didn't mind because I was so dead certain that once we got him, this nightmare would be over and –", she breaks off abruptly and averts her gaze.

Abby smiles. "And the spell would be broken and Gibbs would wake up?" she finishes for her friend.

Kate nods timidly. "I know it's stupid. Things just don't work like that. And I know I'm behaving stupidly when I stay away just because I didn't get my fairy-tale ending."

She makes and odd gesture with her hand, dismissive and disapproving at the same time.

"I wasn't aware just how much I apparently believed in that. How much strength I put into working that case because I thought I was putting into making Gibbs wake up." She shrugs, and suddenly looks very vulnerable, small and helpless. "We caught him and Gibbs is still sleeping. Now I've suddenly got the feeling he'll never wake up. And I don't know what to do anymore." She rubs her temple weary. "I'm tired as hell", she whispers, and Abby can guess she's not just saying she didn't sleep well last night.

"You know", Kate continues after a while, "till now we could pretend that nothing's really changed.

We had Shepard's cases on the side, but all the while we kept working to find that bastard who causes all this shit. We worked with the tapes of Gibbs' interrogations, we worked with the evidence he'd given you, we worked with – _his_ things. There won't be any of that from now on. It'll be as though … he's really gone." She pauses and starts tracing circles around the rim of her mug. "When the Director assigns us to our next case, or we just get the next call about some body and we accept, it won't as Gibbs' team anymore."

Abby looks down at her own cup and swallows hard. "I know", she says quietly after some time. "I've been having pretty much the same thoughts, Kate." She lifts her head again and her gaze starts wandering around in the small kitchen aimlessly. The clear green of her eyes has gone a little blurry, and suddenly Kate has to smile.

Abby has been crying a lot lately. There often have been a tear or two slipping down her cheeks when she remembered something that made her sad, or she missed Gibbs a little bit too much.

They've all been feeling pretty much the same way, to tell the truth. But Abby's the only one of them who is never afraid to let it show. The others tell themselves they can't afford being emotional, they need to be professional. That's rubbish, of course. Being a federal agent does not make you less human. But it's an excuse that comes in very handy and they all make use of it.

So Abby has to provide the endorphin for the entire team.

"But we can't change that unless we all quit", the Goth says, bringing Kate back out of her contemplation.

Abby smiles vaguely and shrugs. "And since we won't be doing that, hopefully, we'll have to get used to it." She grimaces. "I've tired telling myself that nothing's gonna change much, 'cause we've been going without Gibbs all the time already, anyway, but that didn't prove to be a particularly encouraging method."

Kate can't help laughing at that. After a few moments, however, she grows solemn again and shakes her head. "We're talking as if he were dead."

"I know", Abby mutters, slumping a bit in her chair, as if they were trying to solve a problem and just discovered their approach has been all wrong. "It's difficult do decide how to talk about him, don't you think?" She pauses and pokes her cup with her fingernail thoughtfully. "I mean, it was easy at first: good old denial. Just pretend he'll be back tomorrow. But you can't keep your doubts out of your words in the long run, I suppose. I tired to take care of what I said for a while, but now I just keep babbling away." She gives her friend a half-grin. "Like always."

"It's not like the way we talk will change anything", she adds after a while.

"Don't you believe in such things?"

Abby shrugs. "Don't know anymore."

They both fall silent after that, both trying to just concentrate on their tea and the radio that's currently forecasting the weather for the next couple of days. Rain and fog sum it up pretty well. Nothing new there. The girls don't waste words on small talk.

Halfway into the next song, Kate releases a deep sigh and shakes her head in what looks like a mixture of disbelief and some melancholic kind of amusement.

"If I'd known this before", she states, "I'd have stayed with the Secret Service."

Abby glances up to study her, taking a moment to sort apart her friend's comment and her own thoughts she's just been dwelling on.

Then, she just asks: "Really?" and Kate promptly answers: "No." She briefly closes her eyes and laughs quietly. "Forget that, that was nonsense."

She seems to have set something in motion in Abby's head, though. A frown creases the Goth's brow and she stares at the fume hood blankly for some moments before asking: "Did you actually consider a situation like this when you decided you'd become an agent, Kate?"

Kate inclines her head to one side and seems to contemplate the question.

"I guess so", she answers then. "But I think it was more about the possibility of getting hurt myself or losing a principal than – a friend." She smiles. "I can't say I was expecting something like this.

What about you?"

Abby actually chuckles. "I applied for a post as lab tech", she replies, as if that would settle the matter. "What d'you think?" At first it seems as if she wanted to leave it at that, but then she sobers up and shakes her head. "I'd have been stupid not to know I might get close with someone and then they might get hurt. We're not just pretending to chase the bad guys, after all. It's just –", she trails, searching for words. Eventually, she shrugs and says, in an almost off-hand voice: "It's always the same: theory and reality. No divergence like between those two."

Kate nods slowly. "And then you end up wondering whether you wish you'd never have applied, or never have accepted the offer, or never have allowed yourself to get so close with your colleagues."

"And in the end you always realize you wouldn't want to have missed any of it, and taking the job was the best thing you could do, and you'd never want to not know those people. And you really only wish that son of a bitch with a gun had never been born", Abby quietly concludes.

She stubbornly swallows down new tears and musters a grin. "Always wanting what we can't have, huh?"

Kate smiles. "Looks like it." She takes a deep breath and decides that Abby's right, and they've been gloomy for long enough now. "Like with that DVD I so badly wanted."

"Which one?"

"_The Postman only rings twice_. They don't sell it anywhere."

"Maybe it's not out on DVD. Ask Tony, he'll know."

"Yeah, will do that." Kate tucks her hair behind her ears and runs a hand over her eyes, as if trying to wipe her heavy mood away. "Anyway, I bought _Dance of the Vampires_ instead. Care for a girls' night in? I've got wine and chocolate."

Abby grins widely. "I love vampires!"

_**TBC**_

Hope you liked it! I know I'm kind of writing the same stuff all the time, but the stuff also kind of writes itself, so I post it ;)

Reviews still appreciated, even if you wanna tell me you're getting bored!


	12. Question Of When

**A/N:** So the team as to make a difficult decision … since they can't go on avoiding it forever, here we go g

Thank you so much, my dear reviewers! It's great to see some people out there keep up with the story!!

Enjoy!

_**Question of When**_

Sometimes, Abby thinks, it would be good if you could just switch your brain off when you're sick and tired of thinking something over for the thousandth time, and that stupid mind of yours won't stop, no matter what you do.

She sat in her lab, staring at all the chemicals she uses for tests and analyses, wondering which of them could do the job. But then again she's just not that kind of person.

She copes or she doesn't, but she does it herself. And anyway the substances she stores would either kill her or show no effect at all. Neither would help.

It's just that, obviously, she's got something on her mind, and it's one of those things that simply won't leave you alone anymore.

Everyone knows them, there's plenty, really.

It may be something someone said or did, something that happened or something that you just realized. It hits you squarely in the face one day, completely out of the blue, like a snowball you didn't see coming, and then it sticks to you like glue in each and every thing you do.

Those things always remind Abby of those Paris-Hilton-wannabe-dogs (that is, since Paris has had Tinkerbell; before that, she used to just call them wannabe-dogs). Persistent, annoying and, most of all, small: small enough to squeeze through any gap, small enough to hide in the narrowest corner, small enough to live on the flies you killed and rainwater if you don't feed them. And they don't provide enough of a target, neither to heat nor to coldness nor to a bullet. Once you have them, you know you won't get rid of them for a long, long time.

Abby hates such things, she hates the feeling they give you when you wake up in the morning: you forgot all about them over night (unless you dreamt of them, of course), but they never give you more than a few seconds of oblivion. At the first blink of your eye, they lunge at you from the last remaining shadow beneath the cupboard, and off you go into another day of brooding and mulling over them.

They are heavy, cold and dark. Insubstantial, too, or else you could just punch them until they dissolve, and forget them. But they are always behind you, never in front. Cowards, that makes her even more angry at them. They make you shiver, keep you up at night and they constantly have you wondering _What if?_

And all the while you fear that one moment when that cold, dark and looming thing finally taps you on the shoulder, and you turn around because that's an impulse, and you have to face it.

Abby knows that the others – Kate, Tony, McGee – have the same thing on their minds as she does, and that they want to face it as little as she does.

They don't want to face the _yes_-or-_no_-question, _switch-them-off_-or-_don't_. It might be a _when_-question, too. They don't know and they don't care. Whatever question it is, they've got no desire to answer it.

It's a tricky question, damn tricky.

It's hard and sad and it made her cry more than once, but it's so really tricky too, and that's something Abby hardly expected it to be.

Each time she starts thinking about it, the first thing that always hits her, is incredulity, and also something like indignation. Each time, the first thing she asks herself is _How can it be difficult to say yes or no when it comes to a friend's life? _

But it is. She doesn't know how, but it is difficult as hell.

She and the rest of the team, they've been dancing around that question so skilfully over past few days, if avoidance were Tango or Salsa, they'd easily win the world championship.

To their amazement, Ducky plays along. Not a word since they talked the other day in the hospital.

They keep conversation glued to whatever victim Ducky's just examining when they're down in the morgue, and to anything but Gibbs when they chat. They avoid talking about what is on everyone's mind, and they know it's not fair.

Because, slowly, one question became two, and two became three, and now there's a multitude of them whirling around in their heads, playing small, immortal Tinkerbell.

Their common determination to never let anyone get near the _Off-_switch on all those machines that keep their boss alive, walked up to them and began asking _Is that fair?_ And that became _If it isn't, then what is fair? Towards Gibbs? Towards Ducky? _They let themselves wonder what _they_ wanted, what the team wanted. And then something asked _Is _that_ question even fair?_

It's not like time were running out. How could it be? Right now, Gibbs has all the time in the world. And that's what makes the decision so damn hard to take, too. No pressing reason, no emergency, nothing beyond their control. Just a matter of saying _Do it._

It's a situation not of their making, no one's guilty but the guy who fired at Gibbs, but the outcome of it all will be wholly their responsibility.

Eventually, though, they still ended up here, of course. Tony and Abby did, at least.

Two hours after midnight in a bar in downtown Washington D.C., dim light drifting in the warm air like it was something tangible, materialized by cigarette smoke.

Neither Tony nor Abby have been here before, and they both find the place emanates an odd kind of atmosphere. The furniture's stylish, dark chestnut-red leather and black-brown, polished wood, the milk-glass lights hang from a high ceiling and everything is clean. It's contemporary, easy kind of classy. Comfortable and young. Maybe not perfectly Abby's style, but certainly Kate's, and Tony's too (on the more grown-up days).

But there's something gloomy about it, something a bit worn, sad, or stale.

Maybe that's just how they feel, though.

They didn't want to go to some place they frequent, somehow they needed to get away. Until an hour ago, Kate was still with them, and actually they just wanted to pay and then follow her lead, but asking for the bill turned into another order and so here they still are.

Abby's been watching the last pathetic piece of ice that's rapidly diminishing in her drink for at least five minutes, prodding it with a black plastic straw as if she wants to teach it a trick. Suddenly, she drops the straw and looks out of the tall, wet window onto the street. Heavy, mushy snow mixed with rain has been coming down since the early evening, and the streaks it leaves on the glass blur her vision. It's isn't hard to guess what's happening outside, though.

Hardly anyone walks past, and only few cars drive by at this time of night, and those that do make you wonder what their drivers are still doing out there. Going home or running away, night shift or insomnia, can they feel the lateness or are they used to it, happy, sad, cold, indifferent?

"Wow," Abby says into the silence that got quite comfortable between them over the last quarter of an hour, "I never thought I'd ever, ever have to think about something like this."

Tony looks up and watches her thoughtfully for a while. He could ask what she's talking about, he's sure what she just said has got nothing to do with their previous conversation, although he can't quite remember what that was.

But actually he knows. Abby can surprise as well as anyone with the interesting turns her thoughts sometimes take, but lately it hasn't been hard to guess what's on everybody's mind.

"Yeah," he replies, "it's one of those things you hear about every day 'cause they really happen all the time, but I guess you'd never imagine yourself in that position." He pauses and frowns down at his whisky sour. "Hell, it's not even like we're the most unlikely people to get into this sort of trouble."

Abby slowly shakes her head, her black-rimmed eyes narrowing as though she's trying to see something particular in the black January night outside. "I still keep waiting for my alarm clock to go off", she tells him absently. "I still keep believing it's a bad dream."

Her friend gives a soft laugh. "You know what? It's been so long now, even the surrealism of it all wore off for me. First the shock wore off, then the way I didn't feel too confident about heading the team, and now even the way I couldn't believe it." He pauses, and Abby turns to look at him again. "It's like – I don't know. I don't walk into Gibbs' room anymore thinking _This can't be true._ Sometimes I'm still surprised it actually _is_ true, but I know now it did happen. We never thought it could, but it did. That's how it is. And what we're going through now, these are the consequences." Another pause, and Tony's expression turns somewhat troubled as his thumb draws a pattern into the droplets of condensed water on his glass. "You think I should be feeling different?"

Abby studies him for a while, contemplating. He looks different when he's so solemn, she thinks. When she first knew him, over the first couple of months after they'd started to work together, she would have said he looks strange. Unfamiliar, not like himself.

In the meantime, however, she's learnt that this is as much a side of him as his cheerful, silly self. He's someone who likes to enjoy life and see things a little less seriously. It's just that, right now, that's a little hard to do even for him.

Abby smiles at him, remembering his question. "No, Tony", she replies, "what you're doing is accepting, and that's a skill. Taking things as they are because you can't change them. That's something Gibbs could always do, and it's something _you_ need to be able to do now. The rest of us, we're still having trouble, obviously." She shrugs and actually grins at him. "See? One more thing that tells you why you're our boss now, and not someone else."

Tony sighs, but he returns her smile. "Yeah, maybe."

They fall silent, both following their own thoughts for a while. At length, Tony runs a hand over his eyes and looks at her.

"I don't want to say it, Abs."

Abby reaches across the table and puts her hand on Tony's forearm. "Hey – you're the tiger, remember? If you don't say it, none of us will. We're not up to it."

Tony purses his lips. Silence stretches out between them until Abby's ice-cube has altogether vanished. Without looking up, Tony says: "We should tell Ducky we're behind him. In whatever he thinks is the right thing to do. He knows best and he knows what Gibbs said about this."

Abby bites her lips, and if Tony didn't know better he'd say she bit too hard, judging from the way her eyes begin to glisten.

"We've only been a bunch of selfish people, haven't we?"

Tony lets out a deep breath and runs his hands over his face tiredly. "Yeah, maybe", he concedes after a few moments, but the _maybe_ sounds very hollow. "We shouldn't make Gibbs stay if he doesn't want to. That's not how he taught us to handle things. We shouldn't be doing this just because we know we'll have a few difficult months ahead. Just because we feel like we can't cope."

"We'll cope."

"Yeah."

Abby nods, her forehead in creases and a lot of spite in her eyes, but the tears that begin to slip down her white cheeks say that her determination isn't real. Not yet.

She bows her head and swallows her tears, trying to be strong because she knows that if she starts like this, it'll only get harder once this night is through and all of this becomes full reality.

"Tony?", she whispers after a while, "If Ducky tells them to turn off those machines, Gibbs will die, won't he?"

_**TBC**_

Leave me a review, ok?? ;)


	13. Last Things

**A/N: **Oh, I know this one took a while again. Apologies, but I can be amazingly scatty at times, and somehow misplaced my USB stick with the file g

My dear readers, thanks for your patience and enjoy!!

_** Last Things **_

Walking into autopsy and switching on the lights (the dimmer lamps, not the neon ones; those are only on when he works; otherwise he finds them a lot too bright), Ducky spots the black and white form of Abby stretched out on one of his dissection tables, perfectly motionless, but quite alert.

She's lying on her stomach, and from a distance she seems quite relaxed, like someone waiting for a massage.

That might well be a wrong way to interpret the image, though. Ducky doubts that someone lying on a dissection table is usually very relaxed (that is, whilst they're still alive, of course). Then again, this is Abby. She probably looks quite relaxed in the coffin at her home too.

Ducky sets down his bag and studies his young fellow scientist for a while. Her clear green eyes are looking back at him the whole time, and if she wasn't reminding him so much of a little girl, the way she has her face half buried in the crook of her arm, he would actually have considered that creepy. But, once more, it's Abby, and for all her black clothes, tattoos, bracelets and collars, her odd music and her fascination with everything dark, she could never be creepy.

Ducky glances at the clock on the wall. It's shortly after six thirty a.m., and that probably is the true unusual aspect of Abby's presence. When did she come in today?

"Now, Abigail", the ME finally breaks the silence between them, "you're an early visitor, my dear. Did you sleep tonight?"

Abby shifts a little and smiles over at him through the muted light. "Nope", she replies innocently, "don't need sleep. I'm undead."

"I see", Ducky responds as if being undead were just as much an option open to everybody as were liking mushrooms or not liking them. Abby grins as she watches him change into his white coat.

Done, he walks over to her and stops at the end of the table where Abby's head is resting on her forearms. "What is wrong, my dear?"

She waits until he's pulled up a chair for himself and has settled into it.

"Went to a bar last night with Tony."

"Only you and Anthony?" He makes the question sound like the combination could never bode well.

"No, Kate was there at first, but she left 'round one."

"Oh, I see", Ducky says compassionately. Obviously he considers Kate to be the solid element amongst the three of them. "So is it a hangover, then?"

Abby giggles softly at that and shakes her head. "Nah, Ducky. I'd have to down a lot more than what we had yesterday to have a hangover now." She pauses and seems to remember what she actually wanted to tell him. Her momentary mirth dies away in no time and she looks to the floor.

"Talked about bossman."

To this, Ducky doesn't reply. He just gives her a slow nod that says _I see_.

"Ducky?", Abby continues quietly after a while, "What's gonna happen if Gibbs wakes up again?"

Most likely, he wasn't expecting this question. He certainly wasn't.

Most likely, he was also hoping none of them would ever ask. They know enough about coma to figure out themselves what might and might not happen, what is more probable and what less.

He's not angry at Abby for asking, of course not. He's just not all too sure what she really wants to know.

Maybe it's just avoidance when he smiles at her and answers: "Well, first of all I will be very glad." His voice sounds pained even in his own ears, so Abby will have no trouble whatsoever discerning the myriad of _buts_ and _even ifs _that stand in line behind his words.

She doesn't mention that, though. Instead, she asks: "And Gibbs?"

Yes, well. That was the million-dollar-question, wasn't it? For him, for Gibbs' doctors, for the team. For the director, most likely.

He could list all the possible after-effects and all the permanent damage that could have been caused, but there would never be certainty in that and he's sure she doesn't want to hear it. Abby knows. Not everything, perhaps, but enough. This is about something else.

Ducky looks at her thoughtfully for a moment, then he says: "We can't look into his head, Abby. Not sufficiently, at least."

The young woman bites her bottom lip and makes a frustrated little sound in her throat. It sounds angry and desperate at the same time. "We don't even know we might be doing to him, do we?"

Ducky shakes his head. "No, we can't be sure, I'm afraid."

Abby props herself up on her elbows and scrubs at her eyes like a child, as if she's very tired.

"I wish I could say good-bye", she suddenly mumbles, much like she were talking to herself. "Why did that all have to happen so suddenly?"

"Because things like that always happen suddenly, Abigail. It's a way of theirs." He smiles at her sadly. "Would you have wanted to know it would happen beforehand?"

Abby stares ahead for a few seconds, then she snorts softly. "Hell, no", she answers. "That would've been horrible. I'd've gone crazy."

She rests her chin in one open palm and frowns, as though she's thinking very hard about something.

"But haven't you ever wished you'd known before, Ducky?" she asks after a while. "I mean, it's the same when you've lost touch with someone. You promised you'd stay in contact, but then you didn't manage to email or call that person for three months or a year and then you learn they've moved away to live in Moscow with the love of their life."

Ducky cocks a brow. "Moscow?"

"Yeah, well. Wherever." Abby begins to draw intricate patterns onto the matt steel of the dissection table with her fingertip.

"When I was a kid we went to my aunt's every Friday after lunch and my cousin and me always played the same stupid video game all afternoon, and in the evening we always spent half an hour getting on our parents' nerves until they let us watch some movie we were way too young for and order the same soggy, fat, double-cheese pizza." She falls silent and proceeds to tracing plain circles on the tabletop. Ducky watches her silently for a while, trying to figure out the point of the story she just told him. Just when he's about to finally ask, Abby starts talking again.

"I liked those Fridays, you know. I always complained when my mum told me to get ready to leave, because it was almost half an hour's drive one-way and I couldn't stand my uncle. He was a geek. But my cousin was really cool and loved that video game and that disgusting pizza. But one of those Fridays, we must have done all of that for the last time because we're not doing it anymore." She stops making circles and looks up at Ducky.

"You know what I mean? There's a load of things like that. Things you loved but that, at some point, you did for the last time. And it's a pity 'cause right then you didn't know you'd never do them again and maybe you were thinking of something else and you weren't really enjoying it. And I wonder – if I'd known before that, next Friday, I wouldn't be going to my aunt's anymore, or I wouldn't ever see all of those people from school ever again, would that maybe make me feel little less sorry now?" She shrugs. "Perhaps I'd at least have said good-bye?"

She looks at Ducky as though he could explain this situation that seems to really bother her right now, but he can't think of anything, really. It took him a bit by surprise to hear positive, young Abby talk about life like this, with something that sounded a lot like nostalgia in her voice. Not typical.

Eventually, Ducky just sighs and says: "I know what you mean, Abby."

The Goth crosses her arms and lays her head on top of them again, her lips almost forming a pout.

"I'd like to sit upstairs in the office again with everyone and eat takeout, Ducky. I'd like to have everyone down in my lab, and Gibbs telling Tony off for something silly he said. I'd like to sign with Gibbs, I'd like him to bring me my Caf-Pow. Just one more time. Just so I know it's been the last time."

Ducky smiles at her and leans forward, giving her a gentle pat on the head. "I'm afraid that is the way many things in life come to an end, Abigail. It may not seem just and it may be a real shame, but this is how it goes. It is something you cannot change and you can never get used to it. You can only accept it."

Abby growls and wrinkles her nose. "Accept. Duh, here we go again."

At Ducky's questioning look, she just shakes her head with a half-smile that tells him _Never mind. _She pushes herself up and flips over so she's sitting on the table now, legs dangling over the side. "Gang will be here in a couple of minutes. We need to talk to you."

_**TBC … still**_

I'm quite overwhelmed by the amount of reviews, really. Thank you so much, you wonderful people!

That doesn't mean I don't want more, though!! g You can never have enough reviews, can you??


	14. Memories

**A/N: **Now this is where it gets a little AU-ish.

I hope you guys don't mind that I got the characters mixed up a bit … believe it or not, it _was_ accidental at first. I guess my subconsciousness just couldn't resist the temptation to have yet another person worry about my dear Gibbs.

And I have to say that Morrow probably wouldn't have been very convincing in Jenny's stead here after all…

Bethellie, Trumpet Lover, Meg and Reni-Maniac: **thank you** a hundred times for your reviews!! You do make me happy, you know ;)

_** Memories **_

Jenny is sitting at her desk, noting something down with an elegant silver pen, when Ducky comes into her office.

The brightest things in the room are the two computer screens on her desk and the plasma TV on the wall, otherwise the lights are unusually low.

Ducky remembers how bright this office used to be when it was still Morrow behind that desk, and how uneasy that made most people feel.

The brightness had something very official about it, something grave, as if whatever you'd been summoned to talk about could only be bad news.

Then again, Morrow was a much more authoritative and altogether intimidating person than Jenny Shepard anyway. He'd probably have managed to make you feel uneasy in this comfortable atmosphere just as well.

Jenny looks up over the rim of her reading glasses and smiles. "Hello, Ducky", she greets him. "What can I do for you?"

Ducky shifts his weight from one foot to the other, and if Jenny didn't know better, she'd have said he's nervous about something. Sure enough, he seems to be keen on avoiding her question, instead asking in turn: "I hope I'm not disturbing you, Jennifer?"

She shakes her head, taking off her glasses. "Not at all. It's Friday evening, I'm usually occupied with pretty unimportant things at that time."

Ducky chuckles and nods, folding his hands behind his back. His gaze wanders over to the screen on the wall. "Dear me", he mutters, "will they ever stop blowing themselves up?"

Jenny looks over at the images of yet another suicide attack in Baghdad that flash over the monitor, occasionally interspersed with the face of a blonde CNN reporter. After a minute or so, however, she turns her attention to Ducky.

"You didn't want an answer to that, did you?"

The ME's head snaps round to her and he smiles apologetically. "No, I didn't", he says, superfluously.

"What is it, Ducky?"

Ducky draws a deep breath and looks at her through narrowed eyes, as if he were trying to gauge her trustworthiness.

Eventually, he shrugs, or maybe his shoulders just slump, and he explains: "The team decided it's time to let go."

Might be she's a little surprised, but she doesn't show it. She knows it shouldn't be a surprise in the first place, it had to come to this at some point.

Jenny also knows that Ducky has been waiting for it, waiting and dreading it at the same time

She folds her delicate hands on top of her files and looks down at the blue folders for a few moments, as though she finds something there immensely fascinating. Then, she softly concludes: "And now you've got no excuses left."

Ducky doesn't say anything, he just nods and starts pacing the office, his feet making no sound on the carpet.

"What will you do?"

He laughs quietly, and again doesn't answer. It's another one of those questions that don't expect a reply.

They are silent for minutes, Jenny just sitting there and Ducky slowly pacing. She watches him intently, because she's not perfectly sure why he came to her tonight. She has an idea, but she's still searching for proof.

For one, she can definitely see reluctance in Ducky. Understandable. But there's also something close to restlessness, like he wishes he could get it all over with as quickly as possible.

Eventually, the Director decides that, at some point, someone will have to start doing something. The team did their part, now it's their turn.

She locks her computer, rises and walks to the small wardrobe that's integrated in the wall beside the door. She puts on her coat and drops her cell and keys in her handbag. Then she links arms with Ducky. "Let's go", she quietly says, and so they do.

Half an hour later, as they walk down the light blue corridor, a doctor, whose name Jenny just fails to remember at the moment, catches sight of them and comes to meet them.

"Dr. Mallard", he greets Ducky, then to Jenny: "Director."

Jenny just nods, she hardly hears his words. Already her eyes are travelling over to the window that looks into Gibbs' room. Blinds don't grant her much more than a glimpse, however, a lot of white and rather vague shapes.

Ducky turns to her and says: "I'll be with Dr. Morris for a moment, Jenny."

She nods again and smiles. "Of course", and watches the two men disappear into a room a little further down the hall.

While she's standing there alone, her grip on her handbag tightens, as though it was something solid and reliable that could ground her and keep her emotions in check.

She nearly has to laugh when she realizes what she's doing. How silly, she thinks. It's just a piece of absurdly expensive leather, stitched together by some poor Filipino girl and branded _Prada_, then filled with a multitude of meaningless things like a lipstick, a pocket mirror, handkerchiefs, money. There's nothing solid about it, really.

Jenny takes a breath and finally pushes the handle of the heavy blue door, but pauses in the doorway.

She leans her head against the metal frame, finding the coolness of it soothing against her skin.

The room is so quiet and calm, with the lights turned low for the night, nothing moves and nothing makes a sound (except for the ECG and the respirator, but she ignores them deliberately). It reminds her of something.

Her eyes sweep over the countless drawings on the walls, and she has to smile. It borders on a miracle that no one ordered the team to take them off and stop papering everything new. Then again, they aren't doing any harm, are they?

Jenny closes her eyes, and when she opens them again they are glancing at Gibbs. "Sorry it's been so long", she whispers. "You know how mad it can get when everybody's got a hot case and they start tripping over each other because they're all in a hurry." She laughs quietly, but looks to the floor at the same time. "The truth is", she continues, solemnly again, "that I just couldn't come anymore." She releases the door and finally steps in. Slowly, she walks over to the bed, scattering her things over various chairs, until she's standing there beside him without her bag, her coat, her jacket and her gloves.

"Your team are handling this admirably well, you see? I'm having more trouble. And it's all the more difficult because I thought I was tougher."

She smiles wistfully and slips her fingers beneath his, slowly and carefully enclosing his hand with both of hers. "Perhaps I shouldn't have slept with you after all? Then, maybe, this wouldn't be so hard on me?"

She's begun to draw small circles on the back of his hand with her thumb, subconsciously or maybe even out of some habit, but suddenly, growing aware, she frowns.

His hand feels strange in hers, somehow it's neither warm nor really cool, and so lifeless it almost feels insubstantial to her touch. It feels frail and weightless, as if all that was left were the skin, a surface, with a failing strength beneath.

It doesn't feel right at all.

Because Jenny knows his hands. They held hers more often than she can recall since they met ten years ago, she knows the texture of his skin by heart because she's caressed his hands, kissed his fingers, and felt them on her own skin. She knows the way they feel on every part of her body, she knows their _taste_. She knows the way he writes, elegant and forceful, not feeble at all, and the way he holds a gun. There've been scratches and cuts, she's watched him dismantle a bomb with his hands and sand down his boat, she knows how they hold his coffee cups and how gently they touch a child's head. She's seen him sign with Abby, fluid, graceful movements.

He could never keep his hands still. He gestures a lot. He used to trail patterns on her bare skin in Paris.

This doesn't feel right.

She sighs heavily and sits down, never letting go or looking away from him.

"I remember France", she says into the muted silence of the room, and it sounds like the beginning of a story. But then something seems to distract her thoughts, and she leaves the sentence hanging in the air like a memory that only just came back to her after years and years of not thinking about it.

"I remember Positano, when you were shot right before my eyes. It wasn't even that bad, hardly more than a flesh wound. But God, those few moments when I couldn't see a thing because of all the smoke in that hall and because of all the blood on your shirt, and I didn't know how bad it really was, they scared me to death." She pauses and smiles. "I was in love with you at the time."

Jenny laughs, the kind of laughter that's on the verge of slipping into tears, and you can never tell if it's tears of sadness, amusement, happiness, or just everything and they just fall because it's all getting too much to keep inside.

She rests her chin in one hand and closes her eyes, shaking her head. "My gosh, you were stubborn", she whispers. "You didn't want to leave it to us to finish the case because you thought it'd have blown our cover if you'd just disappeared. You cut across me every time I mentioned a hospital. We had Johnston with us, you kept saying he knew enough about medicine to bandage your arm." She shrugs lightly, as if to say _No idea._ "Looking back it probably was the right thing to do, with regards to the op." Her head tilted to one side, she pauses, then goes on with a faint smile. "You slept through the better part of the next two days in that hotel. I can't help thinking about that each time I come into this room. If I ignore all those … things – tubes and stuff - it's just like walking into the bedroom of that nice suite from the bath or our little headquarters in the sitting room."

Jenny studies his face thoughtfully. "You woke up the next morning and we finished the op. You were a little tired perhaps, but everything went smoothly and everything was fine." She looks at him as though she expects him to do just the same again, just wake up and be fine, now that she reminded him.

Footsteps approach outside in the corridor, and she half expects them to be Ducky's, but then whoever it is walks by, and all that comes to possibly distract her is the frozen rain that begins drizzling down, pattering softly as the wind blows it against the window.

It's not exactly helping her very much, though. It rained a lot back then, in Paris.

Jenny sighs and briefly massages her temple.

It's been a long day, and this is not the way she likes long days to end. It's not the way she wants any day to end. With a friend talking to a doctor about ending another friend's life.

She sits in silence, just watching his face, she isn't sure for how long, and finds herself thinking how his lips look chapped. Impulsively, she reaches up and brushes the tips of her fingers over his lips. The skin is dry and thus a little rough, but she has to smile.

The winter air in Marseille always gave him dry lips, she remembers countless times when she kissed him to take away the salt that the wind brought with it from the sea, so it wouldn't burn so much.

Jenny leans in and places a gentle kiss on the corner of his mouth. There's no salt now of course, but maybe it'll help a bit all the same.

Slowly, she sinks back into her chair, and falls silent for a long while. She listens to the sounds outside the room again, and begins a game of guessing what activities they belong to. Given her training and years of experience, however, that's not hard and she ends up wondering what on earth she's doing. The last time she did something of this sort – trying to identify sounds, trying to keep her eyes shut exactly one minute, and then open them again at always the next number on her bedside table clock – she still was a girl.

The things long days and sorrow can do to you.

She looks at Gibbs again and releases a deep sigh. "I didn't think something like this would ever happen", she tells him, and after a long pause goes on: "We've been through a few things together, haven't we? You taught me a lot. We worked together … we slept together. We relied on each other because we had to and we knew we could." She subconsciously bites her lip. "You lied for me. We laughed a lot and fought a couple of times." A smirk tugs at the corners of her mouth. "Pretty hot arguments that I quite enjoyed, you know? We did a few stupid things together and a few damn clever ones. I trust you. I loved you once." Jenny swallows and holds his hand a little tighter. "I don't want an end like this one, Jethro. I prefer happy endings."

She falls silent and bites back her tears when she finally hears the door open behind her and close again. Ducky walks to the other side of the bed, heavily sitting down in a chair.

He isn't looking at her, so the slight redness of her eyes has time enough to vanish again. When she's certain that there isn't a trace left, at least none that would be detectable in this vague light, she looks over at a mute, unmoving Ducky.

The Director watches him across the bed, trying to read something in his expression, but there's only weariness and frustration, things she's grown used to encountering around Gibbs' team lately.

The ME just sits there, staring at something on the floor that seems to capture his attention, but is invisible to her eyes.

For a few minutes, they both remain completely silent, Ducky obviously far away, and Jenny not quite able to muster the courage to start the inevitable conversation.

Eventually, however, she can't stand the tension any longer.

"Ducky?" It's very tentative and quiet, but it's enough to make him look at her.

He returns her gaze steadily, but with an expression that seems to ask back _Hm?_, like he had no idea what she could probably be waiting for.

"Well?"

Ducky sighs and runs a hand over his eyes. "I told Dr. Morris", he says tiredly, "and he showed me the results of a routine check they did just this afternoon. They were better in comparison to the ones before. He wants to wait."

It takes her a moment to realize what he said, that it's actually good news, the first good news since it all began, and for a moment she just want to laugh. But then she starts to wonder why Ducky's voice is sounding so flat, and why he looks so downcast.

For lack of anything else to say, and because she's getting the impression that her companion won't be saying much without being prompted tonight, she asks: "Isn't that something good?"

Ducky doesn't even seem to hear her. He rises from his chair and steps up to the bedside.

"I don't know if there's any good in waiting", he says quietly, and Jenny doesn't object because Ducky seems to be really talking to Gibbs. "Can I do this to you, my friend?", he asks.

Jenny can clearly see the ME debate with himself. She doesn't envy him for being the one to take the final decision. It isn't hard to see how he _wants_ to wait, probably forever, but she knows he also wants to spare Gibbs another three months or God know how long, of going through whatever he might be going through right now. She can't blame him for letting himself be influenced by the rest of the team until today. She can't blame him, now that the decision is taken, for wanting to finally bring this to an end, either.

Jenny closes her eyes. She felt quite strong and determined back in her office, when she decided to support Ducky in this. The whole thing naturally became a completely different matter as soon as she entered this room, she could have known that before.

She isn't so strong now, and not even so unselfish. What Ducky told her about his conversation with Dr. Morris, sounded like hope to her, _real _hope. Medically justified. That's good enough for her.

Carefully, she rests her head on Gibbs' shoulder. "Say yes", she whispers, "say we'll wait." Ducky can't tell whom she is actually addressing.

He studies her silently for a few moments, her dark green eyes looking down at her fingers, interlaced with Gibbs'.

"Well", he says at last, "who could refuse such a beautiful woman?", and Jenny smiles. She won't blame him for letting her influence him, either.

"How long?"

Ducky shakes his head. "I don't know, Jennifer."

She sighs and nods. "Fair enough", she says tiredly. "For now."

The older man lingers there beside the bed for a few more minutes, then he returns to the chair he's been occupying earlier, and sits down.

And hour later, he is fast asleep, his hands folded on top of his belly, and Jenny's eyes are drooping. A loud sound from the corridor startles her into a more conscious state again, or maybe the sound just was loud in her sleepy ears.

She straightens up in a feeble attempt to shake off some of the heavy tiredness that's wrapped itself around her like a blanket, and casts a glimpse at Ducky.

Briefly, she contemplates waking him and suggesting to go home (that chair can't be too good for his back, can it, not at his age…) and catch some sleep before they've got to get back to Headquarters anyway, but then she suddenly thinks _So what? _ and without any further ado slides off her pumps.

Carefully, she slips onto the bed until she's lying right next to Gibbs, still clasping his hand, and stares up at the ceiling, originally white but painted a pale, warm yellow by the dim lamps in the room. She vaguely thinks that the first night nurse that comes by, will probably kick her out for this, but to tell the truth she's tired enough to be way beyond caring.

It takes no more than a few minutes before she's fallen asleep as well.

A few hours later, a gentle hand on her shoulder wakes her.

"Good morning, Jennifer", she hears Ducky voice say, and, judging from how well rested it sounds, it must obviously be true and older people don't need as much sleep. _One reason for looking forward to my next birthday._

"Morning, Ducky."

She shifts a bit and realizes that she ended up curled up beside Gibbs, one arm draped over his chest. She smiles faintly. A little too much reminiscing last night, it seems.

Jenny carefully sits up, and then stands on her bare feet on the cool linoleum floor, suppressing a yawn.

"Bloody hell", she mumbles as she tries to tug her clothes back into shape and put some order into her stubborn hair. "If my people see me like this …"

Ducky chuckles. "Oh, don't worry, Jennifer. Caitlin and Abigail have looked pretty much the way you do now innumerable times since October."

"Mhm, but I'm the Director", she mutters in return, "I'm not supposed to be spending my nights in one of my agents' beds." She instantly frowns and makes an odd, impatient gesture with one hand. "Hospital bed."

"Of course", Ducky says, smiling rather cheekily.

Just when Jenny considers herself presentable again, Dr. Morris comes into the room with a smile and a _Good morning_ that's even brighter than Ducky's.

He stands next to Ducky and shows him a chart. "Glad we decided to wait now?"

Ducky smiles tiredly, but genuinely, and nods.

_**TBC**_

Reviews please!! I'm insatiable there, you know…


	15. Guilt

**A/N:** Well, I can't really think of much to say about this chap. So maybe you just want to go and see for yourselves!!

Meg, random chick and all you other wonderful people: thank you so much for the reviews!!

And now enjoy!

_**Guilt**_

It's a few hours before Ducky and Jenny leave for the hospital, and Tony has been trying to reach Kate on her cell for at least thirty minutes.

Having dialled her number for the umpteenth time and sick and tired of her voicemail, he finally hears Kate herself on the other end.

"What, DiNozzo?"

"What if this was an emergency?"

He can practically see her roll her eyes.

"Is it?" she asks, sounding annoyed instead of alert, which makes him frown.

"No."

"No problem then, is it?"

Tony purses his lips in disapproval. "Could've been."

He hears her sigh, then there's a pause. When she speaks again, she sounds tired, her irritation gone from her voice. "What is it, Tony?"

"You'd never have dreamt of not answering your cell when Gibbs phoned you."

"No, but I didn't have to worry that he'd call me up while I'm on a date or something once he found out I'd always answer."

He tuts and shakes his head. "You think I'd really ruin your date?"

"Tony?" Kate prompts, warningly. "What is it?"

"Where are you?"

"It's Friday evening", Kate replies. "We closed off the case."

"Yeah, I know it is and I know we did. But I didn't ask you that."

Another pause. Then: "I'm off, Tony. And no, I don't feel like going out for a beer tonight."

Tony shrugs. "Me neither", he replies quietly.

"Then what do you want?"

He sighs in mock exasperation. "Do I have to say everything twice? I wanna know where you are."

"Why?" There it is again: she's annoyed. Briefly, he considers slowing down a bit and admitting he's just worried about her because she just left the office without saying good-bye to anyone. But then he decides a little infuriation might just as well do her low spirits good.

"Why not?"

She growls lowly, like an extremely pissed cat. Then she tells him an address and hangs up.

Ten minutes later, Tony is walking down the street with his PDA in his hand, the display showing him where he's got to go to get to the place Kate told him.

It's around seven o'clock in the evening, and Washington D.C. is as vivid and bustling as a bees' hive. It's a lot more colourful, though, not only yellow and black.

Corresponding to the month – it's early January – it's cool and damp, but no one seems to care.

The streets are wet and gleam in a pale, angry shade of gold – rain reflecting the streetlamps – and cars are skidding along by fits and starts, traffic light to traffic light.

People in all kinds of attire hurry along the sidewalks, across plazas, jump out of and into cabs, emerge from underpasses and are swallowed by them. It looks like carnival as the working days gradually slips into night, there's no fitting all those individuals together. They either all belong here because it's Washington and it's seven p.m. on a working day, or they are all out of place.

People in business suits and costumes, ties and thighs, people in uniform, the militaries and the cleaning personnel arriving for their shifts at the federal buildings likewise, pizza boys who always have a way of looking vaguely silly, people with shopping bags with no definite style of clothing at all, women in high heels already dressed for the evening, people closing off the day's business and other just starting the night's. Kids, old people and everything in between. An ambulance. The occasional tourist. A TV crew.

For one reason or another they are all in a haste, coming out of buildings or leaving them, all running somewhere or from something, bumping into each other and throwing _Excuse me_ or _Watch out, idiot_ across the slippery pavement as if they're playing some very ingenious, or very senseless ball game, and their embarrassment or anger's already half forgotten before they've even turned around again.

It probably looks like perfect bedlam to an outsider. But Tony hardly notices any of it. He sees this every day, and has seen the same in Philly and Baltimore. He only registers as much as he needs to navigate his way along the streets, and to avoid colliding with anyone and inevitably having to throw back that silly ball to someone.

That doesn't take much, and doesn't require his attention. It goes automatically. Whether that's got something to do with being an agent, or whether you just acquire that kind of skill when you live in a big city for long enough, he can't tell for sure.

It's not something that occupies his mind right now either, though. Because Kate is on his mind.

His eyes are firmly fixed on his PDA, and the small, pulsing dot on the screen that indicates the address she gave him.

It's been a twenty-minute-walk, but he finally arrives.

He stows away his PDA in the pocket of his windbreaker and looks up at the building in front of him.

It looks like it has dropped out of the sky someday, and by chance landed in the free space between two tall, modern buildings that tower high above it.

It's so out of place among all the office buildings and shops that it can only have been here for a very, very long time already. Someone's been taking good care of it, though: the walls are a clean off-white, the wooden door has a smooth cover of varnish without scratches and cracks, and the cast-iron handle is polished and shows no traces or rust.

"A church", Tony murmurs to himself. He can't say he was expecting this.

He tries to remember when he last was in such a place, or attended a service, for that matter. He doesn't know. It's been a while.

He does recall Sunday mornings, though, when his nanny forced him into a stark white dress shirt with a starched collar and a stiff black suit, slung a tie around his neck and almost strangled him with it. He remembers his mother admonishing him to keep away from puddles and everything else that might spoil the perfect shine of his shoes while she put on her black fur coat, and asking him three times in a row whether he'd washed his hands. She'd fuss about his hair as if it were out of order although there never was any bloody way it could be, shocked into utter immobility by a pound of pomatum as it was.

Standing in this church, he can almost smell the perfume she used on Sundays (only on Sundays, and holidays, for a reason he can for nothing figure out) again.

He hated churches. All they ever meant to him were being rigged out like a doll and being considered insufficient for some silly, trivial reason all the same. Dirt underneath a fingernail. A hair that actually did manage to escape the iron grip of pomatum. A splash of muddy rain water on the tip of his shoe. His cousins always managed to keep their shoes and white thighs magically clean, whatever the weather, as though there was some invisible shield surrounding them.

The last time Tony has been to a church was for the occasion of a Christmas service, but he can't remember when that was. If he had his way, people would be free to believe in whatever they wish and practice their faith in whichever way they want to (as long as they don't start killing others along the way, that is), but his childhood memories only ever caused a feeling of contempt in him when it comes to Catholicism. Strictness, disapproval and stiff black suits are all he ever related to it.

And that is why he's rather surprised at how comfortable he's feeling as soon as he steps through the heavy door. Granted, he can't quite get rid of his mother's far too heavy perfume in his nose, but he really expected to have a stronger urge to run out of the church again right away.

Maybe it's because this place is so small and, in contrary to the stale chill he remembers from the cathedral of his childhood, quite warm. The lamps emanate a diffuse, soft glow and the silence is peaceful rather than so majestic that it's sole purpose seems to be to intimidate and remind you what a sinner you are.

Maybe it's just the fact that he came here for Kate, however.

Tony's eyes instantly find her sitting on one of the benches, unmoving, gaze resting on the candles on the altar, of the cross chiselled into the white stone it was cut from, or something only she can see.

She was tense all day, but now she seems relaxed, as if this place has calmed down the turbulent emotions that were absorbing her since the morning.

When he first learned about her religiosity, Tony didn't quite know what to think about it. He'd never made any effort to approach the church or some deeper kind of faith, he'd just developed too thorough a dislike for it all. It was difficult for him to believe that, or even understand how faith, and dressing up on Sunday mornings and Our Father and pray for us sinners fit together with a smart, young and independent woman who wore a Ralph Lauren-coat and Jil Sander instead of Chanel no. 5 and a dead mink.

They obviously did though.

Tony decides he's been there in the back of the tiny church for long enough and strolls down the row of benches, sitting down next to Kate. She gives no sign of having noticed his appearance, but he knows she has. He studies her profile for a while, then he asks: "You praying?"

Kate smiles and shakes her head. "Just thinking", she answers quietly. "I haven't been praying in a while."

She inclines her head and looks down at her hands, instinctively folded in her lap. "Since I started working – especially since I began at NCIS – I've seen so many murderers, rapists, dead bodies and destroyed lives that the words in the prayers just can't express it all any more." She tips her head to one side. "Sometimes I think that no words can, at all. They're too small and simple for all those monstrosities."

She turns to him and asks back: "How 'bout you? You pray?"

Tony draws a face. "Nah, I never cared much for churches. Always found those figurines quite intimidating. They look contemptuous."

Kate stifles a chuckle. "They probably do to you."

He shrugs with a small grin, but they both quickly school their faces into solemnity when an old lady walks past them to the front row.

"What've you been thinking about?" Tony asks after a while, when the lady's out of earshot.

Kate releases a deep breath and seems to contemplate the question, as if she's not quite sure what's been going through her head all this while.

"The Secret Service", she eventually says, and after a pause explains: "We never worked together for more than one assignment. It's just common practice there, and also a security measure." She runs a hand through her hair and tucks a few strands behind her ears. "I mean – I had my friends there, still have, but … I guess I just hadn't realized until now how different it is … how close you grow when you always work as a team."

Tony nods. "Yeah, especially when you work in Gibbs' team. When you're together twenty-four-seven, you probably can't help growing close."

Kate laughs quietly. "True."

They both fall silent for some time, until Kate rubs her eyes with the back of her hand, sighing, as if she just remembered something very unpleasant.

"This morning was just horrible", she states. "I don't know. I just feel –", she breaks off and shrugs helplessly, her eyes wandering around in the church as though she thinks she might find the right words spelled out somewhere on the walls. Eventually, she makes a resigned gesture with her hand. "Completely empty." She draws a breath. "And guilty."

There it is. Stole out from between her lips and now it's hovering in the fuzzy, incense-tinged air like a little insolent ghost.

Someone had to say it, at some point. Someone had to bring the topic up. It isn't such a surprise that Kate's the one to finally do it. He just didn't see it coming now, here, in the middle of all this calmness and peace.

Briefly, Tony closes his eyes, as if he could blink her last words away, but when he opens them again, the ghost it still there, waiting to be openly examined, discussed and then carried around for a long, long time; waiting to receive the attention it thinks it deserved all along.

He sighs. "You know, this reminds me of a movie."

Beside him, Kate blinks a few times. "Which one?" she asks, much more because she can't think of anything else to say in her current state of amazement. It's fascinating just when Tony will come up with his movies.

Tony seems to consider the question for a moment, then he replies: "Any that's got a death in it and isn't _Terminator_ or one of the _Saw_s." He turns to her and continues: "There's always some character that'll at some point start crying _It's all my fault! I'm guilty! It's all because of me!_" Kate actually is getting trouble stifling a giggle at his wailing tone. "And the audience will always go saying: No, it's not your fault. Just what makes you think it could possibly be, you masochist. You know what I mean, don't you."

Kate clears her throat and tires to sober up a bit. She thinks about what her friend just said, and eventually, recalling a few movies that fit Tony's description, she has to acknowledge he's right. She nods.

"And you think", Tony goes on, "there's something the movies can teach you. If I ever get into a situation like that, I'll remember this movie and won't feel guilty." He leans back again and returns to studying the overflowing ornaments and paintings that adorn the altar, the walls that flank it and the ceiling above. "Seems that doesn't work, huh?"

_No_, Kate thinks as they sit in silence for a while, _doesn't work._

At length, Tony shakes his head. "For what, Kate?", he asks earnestly, apparently jumping back to Kate's statement about feeling guilty. As if the movie-part of their conversation never occurred. "We didn't shoot Gibbs."

He tries to make it sound encouraging and natural, but it doesn't really work. Not for Kate, at least. She knows what her friend's probably been thinking, because she's been thinking much the same.

She shakes her head. "No", she concedes softly, "but perhaps we could have prevented it."

"Yeah", Tony replies, and suddenly he sounds exhausted. His words really come out worn and faded now, like they've been turned over and over a million times already, repeated and pronounced in every possible intonation, order and volume. Like they've already been said a hundred times without affection, and now they're all worn and used, long overdue to be thrown away. "If we'd been more thorough, or more alert, if we'd scanned the containers in the back more carefully, or reacted quicker. If we'd given God knows what a second thought and approached the whole thing differently, maybe we'd never have ended up in that storehouse in the first place."

Kate groans and drops her head into her hands. "That's not what I wanted to hear, DiNozzo", she mumbles through her fingers.

"Yeah, me neither. But it's true. I mean - 'course we feel guilty, Kate. I feel guilty for what I told Ducky this morning. I'm pretty sure, though, that we'd all get a head-slap for that." He shrugs and rubs his eyelids. "Gibbs would say we did what we did and it turned out the way it did. No one wanted it, but that's beyond our power and also beyond our guilt."

Kate straightens up again and stares ahead miserably for a few moments. Then she looks at Tony and says: "I'm sorry."

Tony frowns. "For what now?"

"That we left it to you to tell Ducky."

He smiles. "That's alright Kate. It's my place to speak for the team after all. And how would you have had it otherwise, anyway? Count three-two-one and all say it at the same time?"

Kate chuckles at gives him a playful slap on his upper arm, but then she sobers and looks at him earnestly. "But _that's_ nothing to feel guilty about, Tony."

Tony purses his lips and redirects his gaze to the lead glass windows above Kate's head, although the descending darkness outside already turned all their colours into a dull, dark grey and erased all the pictures through which they told their stories.

Eventually, Tony says: "Well, it _will _kill him."

Kate squeezes his arm until he's looking at her again. "Firstly: I could say such a load of things to that now, but I think you know that what you perceive as guilt there is just reluctance to accept. And secondly: you're right. Whatever can we do? I mean – if there's a miracle somewhere in the world that's still free, let's go get it, but – I doubt there is one."

She smiles at him. "And now let's get out of here. I feel like going somewhere for a beer." Tony grins.

They both rise and step out into the aisle, but Kate doesn't seem to be ready to leave the church just yet.

Instead, she walks to the front and stops by a brass candle holder with numberless branches. Ten or twelve candles have been lit, some of them still fresh and tall, others almost burned down already.

There's a clattering sound when Kate drops a coin into the tin box next to the candle holder, then she picks up one of the white candles, lights it and lingers for another few moments before turning and following Tony out of the small church into the cold evening.

_**TBC**_

What do you think??


	16. A Long Time

**A/N: **What can I say about this one? It was high time, wasn't it? So … just enjoy!

random chick: I'm very sorry to disappoint you, but I think there won't be any more Jibbs in this one, unless something unexpected should happen. I hope you'll keep reading all the same!

Trumpet Lover: I haven't been to D.C. either…so this might be the right moment to say sorry if I got anything wrong.

Thank you all for the reviews!!

_**A Long Time**_

Dr. Mallard had been here in the morning, Laura told her, but since her shift began, Emma hasn't seen any of them. Which is strange, because she can hardly remember a span of time longer than two or three hours, when there wasn't at least one of them dropping by. This time, however, it's been many more hours, something like sixteen or seventeen, actually.

She found herself wondering why, then making up scenarios, then hoping that nothing had happened to another one of them. And she mentally scolded herself.

It's not a rule for medical staff not to become involved, but it makes many things a lot easier if they don't. It is, anyhow, a rule Emma set up for herself long ago. Usually she's fairly good at keeping to it. She's been a nurse for years on end, and as it is widely known, people can adapt to pretty much anything. You can get used to frantic relatives, sobbing wives and girlfriends, grieving parents. You can get used to all the ugly wounds, all the tragedy and injustice, unbelievable as it may sound.

It would be wrong to grow indifferent, or even cold. But a certain professionalism is helpful, and necessary most of the time, too.

Once in a while, however, something will come your way and professionalism and being used to it all won't work anymore. Something like this peculiar bunch of people.

They spent enough time here to make a fine case study for Emma, were she a psychologist or something of the sort. She isn't, of course, but that doesn't diminish her interest and curiosity.

If it hadn't been obvious anyway, it would as least not have been hard to guess they're coworkers. A team.

The way they respond to each other, seem to be able to interpret each other's actions and words correctly, and also able to support each other. The way they seemed perfectly determined not to move an inch from where they were that first, very long night here at the hospital. A if a silent agreement existed. It was because of their colleague – she'd automatically thought _colleague_ then, now she knows he's their boss – naturally, but it also was because they didn't intend to leave each other.

Still, how they actually manage to function as a team, eludes Emma to this day. Even more so after she's had a little time to get to know them.

If you ever had the chance (and the rather disputable pleasure) to gather experience in watching people like Emma does – people in hospital waiting rooms waiting for someone, anyone to tell them how the surgery went, how their friend, relative, spouse is, if it's good or bad or hopeless – you'll know that the first few hours never tell too much.

People are under shock, they are hysteric, absurdly composed, sometimes even aggressive. They react to the fact that their world has been turned upside down in one or the other way, and that's something that doesn't happen everyday, so they're not their everyday-selves.

It was the same with these five, but it was different as well.

They were very calm at the beginning, restrained, as if they could keep something from escalating by their own composure. As if they could retroactively defuse the situation.

As if panic wasn't good for anything as long as no one actually told you there was a reason to panic.

But Kate had dissolved mascara on her cheeks and clotty lashes, and they all had patches of dust and dirt scattered across their windbreakers and pants. She had blood on her hands and Tony had, too, and they hadn't bothered much to clean themselves up.

They looked liked they'd been through this kind of thing a couple of times before, which even might be so, given the jobs they do. But they tried to make it look like it was a procedure that always consisted of the same stages, and always turned out the same way.

It was an almost desperate attempt to reassure themselves nothing was as bad as it had probably looked.

That a group of so young people could even give such an impression, made her a little sad.

It made her wonder how many severely injured and dead people they must have already seen, how many colleagues they already had to worry about or grieve for, and how many stories about what happened to others they already heard.

It isn't right, she thought, that someone could get professional about such things.

Since that first night a lot has changed and Emma has seen a lot more of them. And – and there's your trouble – she realized she's come to like them.

They're such a lively crowd, actually, and they seem so determined not to lose hope.

Although, standing here in the door tonight, she thinks she finally perceives a change there, too.

Not that that wouldn't be understandable. She knows what has been the big issue for weeks now, and which decision was taken, and how Dr. Morris' counsel and Dr. Mallard's complying somehow left them hanging in the air, somewhere between relief and just more worrying.

Emma wishes she could help them. Tell them something to make it better.

She groans inwardly. Dear Lord, she really should take better care. She likes them way too much.

And if she sums it all up, the whole thing in the end just makes her sad.

There's a bunch of people who, at first sight, don't fit together because they banter and squabble like teenagers all the time, and seem to have characteristics that shoot off into the most opposite directions possible.

Kate appears to know where she's going with her life and what she wants, she's calm and mature, but as soon as Tony strolls into the picture, she turns into a fourteen-year-old. Tim generally just seems to be frightened of them, Abby's – well, Abby, and Dr. Mallard is a British gentlemen who likes bow-ties and is at least twice their age.

Whether it's been some sort of destiny, someone who saw their potential as a team or just administration that put them all in one place, Emma can't tell. But she _can_ tell that, whatever their differences, they've become a family.

She doesn't know about their boss. She doesn't know if she would be as fond of him as much as she is of his team (if she were to meet him, that is; right now, she has somehow adapted those five people's fondness of him; couldn't help it), but she knows she thinks that whatever led to those gunshot wounds, was unfair.

Unfair, because those agents spend their time chasing people who haven't got anything to do with them or their lives, and then one of those nutters gets hold of a gun, cracks up and pulls the trigger.

And this is where the whole story ends: in a hospital, a little over three months later, a couple of lives that have gone completely out of order, and a fragile, black-haired young woman in funny clothes who's been sitting there cross-legged and mute for the last two hours.

Emma only knows her with her lips constantly moving, Abby's made her chuckle more than once through all those days.

She seems to have run out of stories today, though.

Emma sighs again and finally steps through the door. She's somehow reluctant to disturb the young Goth, but she need to check on her patient.

So she does, takes notes, adjusts the dose of the medication he gets through the IV, casts another habitual glance at the monitors and leaves again as quietly as she can.

Normally, she would have said something. Struck up a conversation with Abby, she's such a pleasant girl.

But not today. Somehow, Emma doubts Abby even realized she was there.

And although she can't know it, naturally, the nurse is right about that.

Of course, Abby noticed her presence. But she didn't have the heart or the strength to react, and anyway she's too deeply lost in thought to really decipher the meaning of her brain's message _Emma's here_.

She's thinking about the day. It's replaying in her head, morning via lunchtime and afternoon up to now. Evening slipping into night. It's late.

This morning, they told Ducky that they'd go with any decision he takes now.

"Keep your promise", Tony said, and that was it. The words jumped off his tongue with surprising ease, but most likely it was the same as when you're in a shock: the adrenaline keeps you from panicking, but you know that once the effect wears off, you'll have a whole lot of panicky thoughts to deal with.

"Well, I'm grateful you said that", Ducky told them in return, and then he smiled. "No, I'm not. But that isn't of such great importance, is it?"

He sent them back to their work as if they'd only come to see him for the results of an autopsy, not giving a single hint as to what exactly he meant to do next. Or when.

They left the morgue together, like a small flock, all with the same dull feeling somewhere in the pits of their stomachs.

Somehow, they'd expected it to be different. Maybe they thought there would be something more said. Some tears, some _we'll be fine_, a little talking it over once more to make sure they knew what they were doing. Or that there wasn't some argument they'd forgotten to consider, and that might rescue them.

But it was just a calm conversation, a few quiet words, a nod and a smile and get back to your work. And they actually did. Left Ducky again, walked to the elevator in silence, then Abby got off at the next level, the others returned to their desks, switched off the screensaver and tried to concentrate.

All through the day, no one mentioned the conversation in the morgue again. It was like they were afraid that if they did, the meaning and the irreversibility of it all would jump at them and fling them all to the ground.

Blinker and go on. That's better than to stop and start thinking.

That was two and a half days ago. Since then, everything's been turned upside down (once again), in a way. Coming to think about it, it's probably even happened twice.

It started with Ducky coming in this morning, grabbing her hand and taking her up to the squad room to break the good news to everyone.

_Yes, they switched off a few things, but that's because they're not necessary anymore_.

Kate hugged Tony, who happened to stand next to her at the time (otherwise she would probably have hugged her file cabinet, or whatever else she'd have gotten hold of), McGee looked like he'd just learned he got an A instead of A-. and Abby herself remembers being so relieved she maybe let a tear or two escape.

Somehow you could almost think they'd missed the part about _That doesn't mean we can be sure he'll wake up, though, or when, or what permanent damage might have been done._

Abby thinks they deliberately missed it then. They'd been waiting for something uplifting for such a long time, they just yelled _First the good news, and you can keep the bad ones 'cause we're tired of them!_

It's been ten hours since this morning, or perhaps eleven, and their relief turned into another sort of worry at best, and their hopefulness into fear of itself.

After all, they realized, nothing changed that much.

The respirator's gone. That makes it all look a little less worse from the outside. Gibbs isn't that far away anymore, maybe. He's sleeping, or unconscious, but not in a coma.

Abby's been lying with her head on the bed for God knows how long already, close to him, just because it felt so very reassuring to hear _him _breathe again, not some machine.

But, like the others, she's afraid to get her hopes too high, and that's what makes to whole thing so damn stupid.

Before Ducky told them about the minute changes in Gibbs' condition, they were all just afraid, worried, uncertain, and reluctant with regards to many things.

Now they still are all of this, but they're also fighting not to get too optimistic, and to accidentally start saying things like _Oh, that can wait till Gibbs is back_.

Because even if he wakes up soon, he still might never be coming back.

They're fighting to neither loose hope nor to think too hopefully at the same time. That's a hard job, and tiring.

Abby's been sitting in the hospital chair mutely for the last two hours. She's never been so silent when she was here alone.

Usually, she talked to him.

About the greatest rubbish that came to her mind, if she had to. If Gibbs had heard all of that, he'd be an expert on the bands she likes now, her friends and the bands _they_ like, Washington's nightlife, and internet chat rooms. And a lot more that even she can't remember now. The viciousness of hair dye, probably.

She knows she started babbling about something when she arrived, but after a while her own voice began to annoy her, and everything she said sounded so utterly meaningless in her own ears that she felt Gibbs would give her a look or say something if she went on any more.

So it's very quiet, peaceful in a way, and she's got her knees pulled up to her chin, and stares stubbornly at something that, for a change, doesn't have a meaning.

She's avoiding tubes, monitors, blankets, the drawings on the wall. Unfortunately, after over three months, everything kind of carved itself a meaning out of a faceless chunk of wood. Even the mottled blue of the damn linoleum floor. It's part of the picture, part of their last about one hundred days, part of all the worrying and confusion and all the saying _Everything will be fine_ and silently thinking _I don't know if I believe it'll ever be._

Abby closes her eyes. If she can't look at a simple window or a chair, blackness is fair enough.

And if she really makes the effort and listens to her feelings, she has to admit that they have evened out again. She's just being a little dramatic, and she tells herself that's just the strain and tiredness and the way the intensity of the last quarter of a year wore her out a bit.

It may be five minutes later, or fifty, when she opens them again, not quite sure why. Perhaps it was a reflex, triggered by whatever.

Outside, it's begun to rain, or to snow, or both. The sound of the drops and particles of ice against the window is soft an irregular, and makes her sleepy.

Automatically, she looks at Gibbs.

Something tickles her nose, and she sniffs quietly.

Abby lets her feet slide to the floor and leans forward, taking his hand in hers. She's become so used to taking care not to stir the IV needle, she doesn't even have to look.

"Hey", she says softly, smiling through tears she's not quite sure when they began to roll down her cheeks.

He blinks slowly, and it takes a while before he manages to keep his eyes open. They sweep through the room randomly for a few seconds, then they briefly settle on Abby before fluttering shut again.

Briefly, but apparently long enough.

He smiles, it's very week but it's there when you know him.

"Abs." It's more lip reading than actually hearing it for Abby, but that's more than enough at the moment. A lot more, actually, because aside from everything else, this one-syllable-word means he recognizes her. And that's a good sign. Very good.

Abby realizes only now that she really had convinced herself all this would never, never happen.

She leans in a bit more and whispers: "Hello, my hero."

Another smile, and she can feel he's drifting off again. Abby knows she should let him, but she can't.

She gently tugs at his finger and waits for the time it takes until her plea for attention registers with him, and he opens his eyes again.

"Stay with me for a little while?" she asks, smirking almost shyly. "Just a tiny, tiny little while? It's been one hell of a long time since you've been around."

He frowns slightly. _How long?_ his lips ask.

"Ahm…", Abby swiftly brushes away the tears that blur her vision, not caring what will

happen to her makeup. She glances at her watch and takes a brief moment to calculate.

"Three months, twelve days, twenty-three hours, eight minutes and twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three,…" She stops and smiles. "A long time." The way she's sitting, she only has to crane her neck a bit to be able to give him a gentle kiss on the cheek. "It's enough now, 'kay?"

Gibbs looks a little confused, which is very understandable. She's sure he doesn't remember the shooting, plus it's not like she's exaggerating when she calls October to January a long time.

She reaches out and places a cool hand on his forehead. "Go back to sleep", she tells him softly. Explanations can wait, and question too. Everything can wait, now it really can.

"But come back, alright? Before April."

_**TBC…** _but I'll have to take a break now. I'll be on holiday for the next three week and have no intention of dragging my notebook around a beach on the Bahamas ;)

I sincerely hope you'll return to this story when I do! See you all!

Hoping to find a few reviews when I come back,

robin


	17. Promises

**A/N: **Okay, so I know I'm two weeks overdue, and I'm terribly sorry for that.

Actually, I had the next chap ready before I left for my holiday… but when I came back, it suddenly crossed my mind that I had to insert _this_ one first. The problem being that it wasn't written yet and I sort of had a minor writer's block. Must have been all the Florida and Bahamian sun and all the palm trees and Margaritas.

It's finished now, however, as you can see, and I thank you guys for you patience! I hope you enjoy!!

_** Promises **_

"You know", Ducky says as he walks into Gibbs' living room three weeks later, "I think I may truthfully say that this is the first time that I am not finding you in your basement, working on your boat, Jethro."

"Oh please, Ducky, don't encourage him. We've already been through that discussion twice tonight, and I'm running out of threats."

Ducky stops halfway between the door and the couch, his brow in fine creases. "Threats?" he repeats. "Well, did you try reasoning?"

At this, Jenny just laughs and turns her attention back to her coffee cup. Somehow, Ducky can imagine just why she doesn't seem to consider his suggestion worthy of a reply. There simply are a few things where reason is wasted with Gibbs.

The ME smiles and looks over to where his friend is half sitting, half lying on the couch. He still looks a little pale and very tired, and if Ducky had had his way, he wouldn't be out of Bethesda already. But naturally, that was another of those things where reasoning had gotten him nowhere, and maybe it is just as well.

The traces – the bandages, the tiredness and the pallor – will go away in time, along with the invisible traces the whole experience has left on the rest of the team.

Another few weeks, and everything will be back to normal.

Another few weeks, Ducky thinks with a quiet chuckle, and this peaceable behaviour will be gone again, too. For he suspects strongly that it rather were said tiredness, and probably pain killers, that account for most of Jenny's success with her threats, much more than her persuasiveness.

"It wasn't meant as an encouragement at all, by the way", Ducky says after a moment, addressing Gibbs, "I do hope you realize that."

"Sure."

Jenny drains the last bit of her coffee and gets to her feet. "I'll fetch you a cup, Ducky, and then I'm off. I've got a long and boring meeting coming up tomorrow morning."

There's a hint of annoyance in her voice, and Gibbs says: "I warned you about that job of yours, you know", and after a moment he adds, quite unrelated: "Get Ducky Bourbon. I don't think he's as fond of coffee at ten at night."

"Very true", the doctor confirms, giving Jenny a playful wink as he takes a seat opposite of Gibbs. "Especially since that one time when I was forced to drink cup after cup with a Armenian pathologist in Istanbul in my last year at the Medical School of Edinburgh."

Gibbs smiles and rests his chin in one hand.

"I'd gone there to do some research for my dissertation, you see, and spent hours on end in the library of the University of Istanbul. It was close to unbearably hot in Turkey at that time, and I kept falling asleep over my books in that stifling climate. That isn't to say I did not love the library, however. The whole university is a wonderful building, in a wonderful city, really. It wasn't a long way from the university to the Hagia Sofia, you see, and –"

Ducky's flow of narration is disturbed by Jenny reappearing with his glass of Bourbon and the bottle that she deposits on the table.

She caught mere bits and pieces of the story while she was in the kitchen, and now, handing the ME his drink, she throws Gibbs a half questioning, half amused look, obviously wondering how the conversation turned from the boat in the basement to the Hagia Sofia in such a short interval of time.

All Gibbs could say to that, however, is that it's just Ducky's endless web of associations that could most likely take him three times around the world in the span of an hour, so the agent just shrugs and goes on drinking his coffee.

"Thank you, Jennifer", Ducky says upon accepting his drink from her, and in his best Shakespearean British accent: "Much obliged."

Jenny smiles and picks up her bag from a chair. "Good night, boys", she says, already on her way towards the door. "I see you tomorrow, Dr. Mallard. And you keep away from that boat, Jethro."

"Good night, Jen", Gibbs just replies, watching her vanish through the door. There's a faint rustle as she takes her coat from the rack and puts it on, then the sound of the front door closing.

"How's the team?" Gibbs asks after a brief silence, a silence short enough to not give Ducky time to launch back into his recounting of his student days in Istanbul.

The doctor smiles and takes a sip of his Bourbon. "They're doing fine. Young Anthony has gotten himself into a bit of a frenzy to get everything sorted before you come back to work, but aside from that they do their job as fine as ever and are generally in good humour." Another sip. "I daresay the Director told you all of that already, though."

Gibbs just gives a confirmative _mhm_ and replies: "Always double check."

Ducky chuckles. "Of course." He pauses, a faint frown of mild confusion spreading over his face. "We weren't speaking of that before Jennifer left, though, were we?"

Gibbs sighs inwardly and shakes his head. "No, I think you were intending to say something about Turkish coffee, Duck. Initially. But I'm sure that's not why you came by."

Obviously, this strikes some chord. If he didn't know better, Gibbs would almost have said something in his friend tensed at that remark, and he doesn't know why.

Ducky puts his glass away and slowly shakes his head. "No", he replies, "no, that isn't why." He is silent for a while, as if that already was all that could be said about the matter.

"For one", he goes on eventually, "I just wanted to check on you. I also promised Abby I would, that was the only way she would let herself be talked into not keeping you up all night herself with God knows what she said she wanted to tell you."

Gibbs has to smile, thinking of Abby. It's probably some band she listens to at the moment or a new tattoo or some event she went to. He's got no idea why she keeps telling him those things, after all it's just as if he would keep telling her all the details of building a boat. She doesn't really have a mind for it and he doesn't really have one for her things.

But it's not as if he minds. Not at all.

"And then", Ducky continues, bringing Gibbs back from his train of thought, "I also was hoping we could talk."

Those few words sound every bit as tense as Ducky himself appeared just moments ago. He almost seems to be a bit uneasy, something that Gibbs hasn't experienced in him for years. Or maybe never before.

Sure, Ducky gets angry sometimes, he is occasionally uncertain and there are situations he doesn't like or things he isn't too keen on saying.

But he never had any reason to be uneasy with Gibbs. So what made him now, all of a sudden?

"Okay", the agent says quietly, "go ahead."

From the turn the conversation has taken, Gibbs would have expected at least a little talking around whatever was the issue, phrases like _Well, it's like this_ or _Look, I've been thinking…_

But he doesn't get any of that. Instead, Ducky peers down into his drink for a split second, as though he had crib floating there on the surface of the amber liquid, and then he just says: "I told the doctors in Bethesda to switch off the machines."

The fact behind the words takes a moment to register with Gibbs.

Well, whatever he was expecting this to be about, it certainly wasn't that.

He sets down his coffee mug, as if that might help to get the thoughts Ducky's statement set off into some kind of order.

It doesn't, of course.

As for Ducky, he has no idea whatsoever how Gibbs will react to this.

The initial silence doesn't surprise him, though. His confession came pretty much out of the blue, maybe not the best way to go about a subject as this, but then he just could for nothing come up with an introduction that wouldn't have sounded dramatic or just plain silly.

And to be honest, he rather had it like this. All that beating around the bush usually results in nothing but confusion, misunderstandings and having to voice the problem thrice in the end, so that it's finally clear.

He rather had it plain and unmistakable. He only wishes the words wouldn't hang in the air like this, _resounding_ somehow, although in reality, of course, they don't.

To Ducky, Gibbs' face it as unreadable as ever.

Ducky knows him well, probably as well as anyone can know a person like Gibbs. Most of the time, he can gauge, even predict his reactions. Sometimes he can't, but he mainly dismisses those cases as exceptions to the rule, and it would be quite scary, actually, if they weren't there.

He sees when Gibbs is about to get too deeply involved in a case, so he never gets angry when, next time he comes into autopsy, his friend is too impatient and unreasonable.

When one of the team tell Ducky they screwed something up, aren't sure about something or think they've done well, he can almost always tell them if, in Gibbs' eyes, they're right.

He knew it was over each time before Gibbs even mentioned the word divorce.

He can read the invisible sings.

But this is not some horrible case or a suspect the team lost track of, and it's not another marriage. And there is no way whatsoever for Ducky to guess what Gibbs is thinking about what he just said.

It's a novelty, thank God it is. Ducky wouldn't care for experience in that field, and he certainly won't stow this one away for future reference. Once it's all talked over, he will try and forget about it because there will be nothing to do about it anymore.

What he won't be able to just brush away, however, is the change all of this will cause.

A friendship certainly has to change through an episode as this one, doesn't it? He remembers rows, with Gibbs and other friends, really severe arguments that seemed fundamental at the time, and still did not leave a trace in the end.

But this, a decision over life and death, a matter of unconditional trust and of loyalty too, must certainly change something.

The question is what that change will be, and that is what Ducky can for nothing guess and never had a clue about, and it's what made him so uneasy about the whole thing.

Eleven years of friendship are worth something, after all.

Gibbs' reply takes him as much by surprise as his confession did with his friend before.

"Why didn't they do it?"

The answer comes pretty much of its own accord, Ducky just cannot think of anything but plain facts right now.

"It was pure luck. Timing, you might say. Your test results improved just after I had made the decision."

Gibbs nods slowly.

Okay. Well. He closes his eyes for a short moment and takes a deep breath.

"So, Doctor?" he asks again, his voice quiet and very calm. Irrationally calm, considering that he's just been told it's due to nearly impossible luck, perfect coincidence, a one-in-a-million chance that he's still alive.

And again, Ducky finds it more than hard to guess in the slightest how his friend is feeling about it.

"So", the ME continues slowly, "I have found myself thinking a lot about one thing lately, and that is that you would be dead now because of my decision, if it hadn't been for the others-"

Gibbs frowns. "The others?"

"Yes, well." He makes a vague gesture. "The team. They insisted for quite a while that I wait, and I have to admit I couldn't really bring myself to refuse them." A pause and then, smiling: "Young Abigail came up with disconcerting threats, such as not talking to me ever again if I did anything."

His chuckling fades, he's watching Gibbs closely. The agent doesn't smile, Ducky can't even be entirely sure whether he's been really heard.

He doesn't look angry, though, his eyes are fixed on something in the room, on the opposite wall presumably, something that most likely isn't there.

"The truth is, Jethro", Ducky goes on, unwilling to bear with silence now, and suddenly tired, wanting to finally get it all out and over and done with, "that if I had chosen to ignore your team because I am the medic and I'm supposed to act professionally and they were acting solely on emotions, then I would have agreed with Dr. Morris when he said he didn't think you would ever wake up again for the first time, and that was three weeks into your coma." His voice trails and he takes a sip of his bourbon, not quite sure why.

"And now", he says after a moment, voice a little lower and somehow sounding a bit spent, "I don't quite know what I am trying to apologize for: Breaking my promise, or keeping it." He shrugs, as though to emphasize his helplessness. "Doing nothing for such a long time although there was little doubt from the medical point of view, and thus acting against what we'd agreed on … what I had promised you to do. Or actually deciding to … let you go in the end. And keep the promise."

Gibbs' eyes have flicked back to his halfway through this – what was it? An apology, or not – and now he's watching his friend, perfectly surprised by the whole thing.

He never wasted too many thoughts on wondering what the rest of the team would do if anything ever happened to him.

They are all agents, professionals, and trained to do their job on their own. They know the risks and are often enough reminded that things can go wrong.

But here's Ducky telling him that it was all a big deal and that their obviously cared a lot more than he would have thought them to.

And suddenly he just thinks _what the hell?_ Everything's alright, so what is all of this about?

"You've been wasting a lot of thoughts on _ifs_ lately, Doctor."

Ducky has to laugh, despite himself. "If you had any idea how many sentences were begun with _if_ around the bullpen lately, you wouldn't be surprised. A newly acquired habit, I would almost say."

Gibbs shakes his head. "_If_ doesn't count, Ducky."

The other cannot quite suppress a sigh. He knows what Gibbs it driving at, of course, but that doesn't make it any easier.

You would think situations like this – what they had since October – shouldn't be that complicated. On the contrary – life and death are simple things, of their nature unambiguous. So are promises, so is guilt.

It was clear what had happened, it was clear why, and medical tests, repeated countless times with unchanging results, speak a clear language.

It all should have been clear.

Thinking that, you would apparently be altogether wrong. It wasn't and isn't simple and it isn't clear and certainly anything but easy.

As if he could guess what his friend was thinking, Gibbs went on: "Listen, Duck. We're friends. No one ever said the decision had to be easy, I've seen enough to know it isn't. And I know I wouldn't have wanted to let you go after three weeks." He pauses for a moment, then adds with a quiet smile: "Besides, Abby can be damn threatening if she chooses to."

Ducky can't help agreeing. The trouble with Abby is that she's so adorable that you just don't ever want to make her angry. What is more, she rarely misses a chance to mention that she was _the only person who could kill you without leaving the slightest trace_. That made for an argument, of course.

"Yes", Ducky finally says, "you're right, Jethro, naturally. It isn't easy and it mustn't be. I am sitting here with you so I don't regret what I did. But this isn't about now, it is about a promise."

"No", Gibbs replies slowly, "this is about you not knowing what I think because you would have kept your promise."

Ducky doesn't say anything, but Gibbs knows he's right. It's just this uncertainty that brought Ducky here, because he needs to know. He would be ready to apologize, obviously, but primarily he just doesn't know how things stand.

Gibbs leans forward a bit and says: "Okay, now listen: There's nothing to apologize for. You decided there was no sense in waiting any longer and you acted on it. That's what I was hoping you'd do. That's what I mean when I say I trust you, Ducky.

And if anything like that ever happens again, I hope you'll take that decision again if you think it's the right thing to do."

"Yes, well", Ducky replies, waving his hand as if to brush the discussion away, but looking relieved now. Obviously he finally believes Gibbs. "Can we just agree anything like that will never happen again? That would spare us the whole trouble."

Gibbs chuckles while he fills up Ducky's glass. "So – I won't accept an apology because you won't offer one, alright?" He's silent for a moment, as though considering his next words.

"There is something else, though."

"And what is that?"

Gibbs hesitates briefly, but then he smiles. "Thank you."

Ducky smiles. "I won't say _anytime_", he replies, "and I won't say _you're welcome_ either. I wouldn't want to end up with you taking either literally."

Gibbs laughs and shakes his head.

"How about – the same to you."

_**TBC**_


	18. Paperback

5

**A/N: **Yay, it works again!! Let's hope this will last, then g

Okay, now I know this is a very short one and it's definitely not my best, but I hope you'll like it all the same!

**Meg**: I think that writing the whole recovery process would probably take another ten chaps if I wanted to do it properly, and, to tell the truth, I neither really felt like doing it, nor am I good at writing stuff like that. So I figured I'd rather skip the episode instead of spoiling everything. I hope you'll enjoy this little tiny rest all the same! Oh, and thanks a lot for the review, anyway!!

**And** many thanks to louise, Trumpet Lover and Reni-Maniac … again!!

_**Paperback**_

Another two weeks later, Kate is sitting at her desk, putting the finishing touches to her report.

The sun is sinking behind the tall buildings on the other side of Anacostia River, filling the squad room with a cosy, golden light from floor to ceiling.

It's been a warm day for early March, but that isn't something Kate minds at all. The sooner the better, especially this year.

She missed open air lunch breaks and enjoyed sitting on the terrace of _Joey's_, soaking up the sunshine like a sponge does water. Enjoyed it so much, in fact, that she certainly would have forgotten all about her Cesar's Salad, had Ducky not perpetually reminded her of its existence.

It's not just that, though.

Somehow, the coming of spring also made it a lot easier for her to put behind herself that whole troublesome episode that began last October.

It has always been like that with her, from childhood onwards.

She can get really gloomy and dismal on rainy days, and especially on muddy, overcast late winter days, but as soon as the sun comes out, all her worries are blown away like the clouds that caused all the bad weather.

That's not to say that what they've been though was just a couple of clouds.

A fully fledged storm with torrential rain and violent wind are nearer the mark, and weather like that doesn't just pass by and leave nothing but a few puddles that drain the next morning in the sun.

Kate doesn't really know about the others, of course. She can only suspect there, whereas Abby is the clearest case: she's simply happy. Nothing more to say about that.

Pretty much the same probably goes for McGee, although he still seems to be somewhat uncertain about how to feel about the entire experience.

Ducky will most likely have some wise view on it all, that she can't really guess.

And as for Tony – Kate suspects that he has feelings similar to hers about the whole thing, but, naturally, she couldn't know for sure.

Fruitful conversation between him and her ceased the moment they knew for certain Gibbs would be fine, and gave way to their usual banter again. Just like she had expected.

As for Kate herself, those last few months left her with a basket full of memories that she has very double-edged feelings about.

She wants to treasure them because they are a proof of how this team is a lot more than just an assembly of people working with the same purpose and for the same agency.

They came out of this acid test safe and sound, it didn't drive them apart or prove to be more than they could take, and to Kate that's the proof that they're really friends.

Occasionally, however, she also wishes she could lock all the memories up somewhere and forget about them, because there are quite a few dark moments among them, memories of being afraid and feeling guilty and being certain that nothing would ever be the way it was before.

She's a little worried even now that there might be scars none of the team is yet aware of, and that what they've gone through will make them too cautious, insecure, reluctant next time one of them is in danger.

They may be professionals, but at the end of the day they're only human all the same.

Then again … Kate smiles.

She's sure they'll make _this_ work as well. Maybe they'll all be a little over-worried for the next three or four cases, but then they'll go back to just relying on the others' experience and skill, and they'll go back to being somehow alright with the constant awareness that something terrible might happen, and this will be over and done with for good.

Something black, white and bouncing invades her field of vision from the right and clips the train of thought. She looks up to find Abby standing in front of her desk, beaming.

"I've got it!" the Goth announces brightly.

Naturally, that catches Tony's attention.

"Got what?" he inquires suspiciously, the work he's been doing until a moment ago all but forgotten.

Abby turns to him and reveals something she's been holding cradled in her arms, quite hidden from view.

It's a book, and although it neither has any title, nor any other print that would have given away its contents, Tony knows right away what it is.

He grins. "Ah, that." Turning in his chair, he casts a glance at the door to Cynthia's office on floor above. "Shouldn't be too long now", he muses.

Abby rounds Kate's desk and takes her habitual seat atop the file cabinet, watching the printer produce her friend's report two shelves below and to the right, with detached interest.

As soon as Kate has both hands free, Abby hands her the book and smiles with anticipation.

"What d'you think he's gonna say?"

Kate shrugs with a grin.

"Nothing, most likely."

"That depends on the question, Kate."

Both women jump slightly at Gibbs' unexpected appearance, Abby throwing the staircase a wary glance, as if suspecting that her boss must have rather beamed himself down here.

She overcomes her astonishment quickly, though, and answers: "No questions, Gibbs."

With that settled, it would be Kate's turn to act, but she hesitates for a moment. For some reason, she's a tad bit nervous.

_Don't be silly_, she tells herself determinedly.

Trying to preserve that resolve, she exchanges one last glance with her two team colleagues, then she walks up to Gibbs and places the book she just brought right in front of him, on top of the file he's just been reading.

Of course, Gibbs has already got a comment on his lips before Kate has even straightened up again, but then the object on his desk engages his attention.

By the looks of it, it's a book, but one that chose to be quite secretive about what it's about. It's bound in paper the shade of a dusky sky, anthracite grey with a tinge of dark violet. In general a very unrevealing colour.

Gibbs looks up at Kate questioningly. "What's this?"

Kate shrugs. "A present," she says, "from all of us."

He raises both eyebrows, obviously quite surprised. He looks at each of his team in turn, as if the book was a piece of evidence and he was yet waiting for some more information on it. His three agents and forensics expert are gazing back at him quite mutely, though, all wearing expectant expressions rather than giving the impression of intending to say something helpful.

So, eventually, he opens the book.

Gibbs' face never gives away anything, at least as good as never, and this isn't the exception to the rule. He just sits there and slowly turns one page after the other.

Kate has to fight the urge to stand on her tiptoes and try to catch a glimpse of what her boss is currently looking at. Instead, she pulls out all the stops her training as a profiler provides her with, but of course there's no point in that. So she eventually confines herself to waiting.

She's got no idea whatsoever what he thinks. He might think it silly just as well as touching, or nothing at all.

Gibbs turns the last page and then closes the book again. He stares at the back for a few moments, his thumb brushing over the imprint at the bottom that probably is the name of the place where the book was made.

His eyes narrow a bit and he licks his lips, and suddenly Kate is sure that he at least doesn't think their gift silly.

He looks up and meets her gaze. "What is this?", he asks again. When Gibbs poses this question, he often sounds a bit annoyed because, when he has to ask this, he mostly _is_ annoyed. Now, however, it's a very soft question.

Subconsciously, she tucks her hair behind her ear before replying, wondering but briefly why on earth she's _still_ a bit nervous.

"I made them on the nights we were waiting for you to wake up in intensive care", she explains. "And Abby did one or two. You can see … I put the dates in the corners." Gibbs nods, he's noticed the dates. The first one is the 9th of November, and from then on the order is chronological. Some drawings have two dates. She made them over midnight.

"Abby pinned them all over the walls", Kate goes on, "it looked liked we'd wallpapered in the end." She smiles at the memory, and Tony chuckles behind her. "She also took them down when you were moved to the new room and – I forgot all about them, actually, but Abby quite obviously didn't and collected them and had them bound into a book. We thought … well, I guess we all just wanted you to have them."

Gibbs cannot quite say he remembers an occasion when he was lost for words. But there is a first time for everything, after all.

He doesn't want to say nothing for such a long while, but as he looks at some of the pictures again, he just feels stunned into silence.

The first one's a picture of Tony just sitting in a chair, an uncharacteristically serious expression on his face. Ducky and Jenny talking. A cartoon strip of Abby and someone Gibbs recognizes as the head nurse, arguing over something that's got to do with Abby's computers. A sleeping Abby in a chair, Tony flirting (probably flirting...most likely flirting) with a pretty nurse.

There's one drawing that Kate obviously hasn't made herself. It's less detailed, the lines are less confident and flowing. It's Kate in another one of the hospital chairs, wearing a long evening dress, her high-heeled shoes dangling from their straps in her hands.

Gibbs turns the book so she can see the picture. "What happened?"

Kate actually blushes a bit. "I had a date that evening", she explains.

"With a nurse?"

She knits her brows in slight confusion. "Couldn't it have been a doctor?"

Gibbs seems to consider that for moment. "No", he decides then, "I don't think doctors are your type."

She has to laugh. "You're right, it wasn't a doctor. It was a lawyer. But he wasn't as nice as I thought, so I figured I might just as well do something useful with my time."

"Hm." Gibbs turns the book back around and continues leafing through it. "Well, if you consider sitting around doing nothing useful, the two of us should maybe have a talk, Kate."

His voice is unusually soft as he says that, and Kate smiles.

Gibbs skips a few pages and finds a sketch of Abby playing on her black guitar, the instrument resting upon her crossed legs.

That's the last picture he looks at before he shuts the book again, taking a deep breath. Eventually, he looks at Abby.

"You brought your guitar?"

Abby must admit she did not expect just this question, thus it takes her a moment to react.

She shrugs and folds her hands behind her back. "Yeah, I thought that maybe it might help you wake up." She purses her lips, looking at him almost apologetically. "It didn't work." She still sounds like she finds some kind of blame in that, but before anyone can give that too much thought, she goes on more brightly: "I even conquered my fear of audience for you, bossman – But I'll return to playing just for you again now, I think. Kinda gave me a constant adrenaline-high, all those people."

Gibbs sits in his chair silently again, one hand lifted to his mouth as if he was contemplating something, completely lost in thought.

The team exchange glances, both surprised and quite pleased that after all this time, they actually managed to render their boss rather speechless.

Suddenly, Gibbs gets up and walks round his desk. "Come on, guys," he says, pausing to give Abby a kiss on the brow, putting yet another huge smile onto the Goth's face, "I'll take you out, agree on where you wanna go." He looks at Abby and adds: "Go get Ducky, will you?"

And then Kate gets a kiss as well, and promptly blushes a bright pink. Gibbs just grins at her and goes to get his coat.

_TBC_…one more time ;)


	19. Champagne and Ice Cream

**A/N: **Yes, I know. This took forever, and I apologize. Real life intervened a bit, and so did my computer…but here it is all the same: the last chap, aka a thorough dose of silliness to finish the fic off.

Thanks to everyone who reviewed and kept reading, I hope you all enjoy this last one!

Many, many thanks to my dear friend Sternenlicht for beta and constructive criticism!!

Here we go…

_**Champagne and Ice Cream**_

"Hey Abs."

Her head snaps up and it isn't a moment before she spins around, a bright, cranberry smile magicked onto her lips.

She missed the tell-tale _swoosh_ of the slide doors over the blaring music that fills her lab, and she's pleasantly surprised.

"Gibbs!", she exclaims, as if that was just another form of _Hello_, and before he knows it he's got his arms full of Abby, her own arms slung around his neck and a pigtail in his face.

"Abs", Gibbs mumbles, "you gonna hug me every time I come in here now?"

Abby releases him and takes a step back, peering up at him through her pink lab glasses that turn her eyes an interesting shade of brown. "Only till I'm sure I'm not imagining you or something."

He smiles and walks over to the other side of her screens. "You're not. Rest of the team will testify that."

Abby purses her lips, contemplating that. "Okay, that's a start." She takes off the plastic glasses and stares at him through narrowed eyes. "I'll keep hugging you still. Always double check. Rule number … which one?"

Gibbs laughs and shakes his head. "Alright, I surrender."

"Very wise, my fox." She pauses and picks up the tester tube she abandoned when her visitor arrived. Now she quickly closes and labels it. "And what are you here for?", she asks, slipping the plastic vial into a rack that already harbours a number of other samples.

"Not the DNA test results, I hope?"

"You hope?"

"Yeah, 'cause the analysis still had ten hours left to run when you were here two hours ago, which means I couldn't give you what you want." She smirks cheekily. "And I hate not being able to give you what you want."

He smiles and shakes his head again. "No worries, Abs. I do remember something about _results in the morning._

She has to think about Tony lying on the floor here the first day he was back after he'd been so ill, and Tony sleeping here the night they got that body from Air Force One. She also remembers Kate lounging in one of her chairs while she was waiting for a call, or she'd helped Abby and they both waited for a result. She doesn't have to start about McGee.

Somehow, it makes her wonder why on earth people like her lab so much. It's not like there wasn't a room a few stories above with couches, nice and soft chairs and a view of Anacostia River and the opposite river bank.

Not that she minds them hanging around here. She likes it. It just surprises her a little, now that she's actually giving it a thought, and it does even more today because it's Gibbs, and hanging around definitely is not like him.

She cocks her head and watches him for a few moments. He looks pale and tired, and as if he were cold, in a way.

"You look a little pale", Abby states. "Wanna lie down?"

Naturally, Gibbs answers _No._ "Thanks, Abs, but your rhino frightens me."

"Bert? Oh, come on, Gibbs! Give him a chance!", Abby exclaims in mock indignation. Gibbs looks at her with an expression that says _Don't even start_, but that only compels her more to lunge into a defence speech for her toy rhino: "He may fart, but he's got a good heart." She fails to retain a solemn expression when she realizes what she said.

Gibbs lifts a hand laughingly. "He scares me still."

"Ah, fine then."

One of Abby's machines starts beeping, and they are both silent for a while as the lab tech notes down a few test results and put another set of test tubes into her fridge.

Then she turns to look at her boss again.

"Gibbs? Can you promise me something?"

He doesn't even look up, but only smiles. "No, Abs", he says softly. "I can't."

"Duh, I thought so", Abby replies with a huff and finishes taking notes.

"It's not like we get hurt on purpose, Abby."

"Yeah, I do hope so", she replies, sounding as if she was just striking up a plan to kill everyone herself if they ever got themselves into trouble intentionally. "Just … take care."

"We do."

" 'Kay. I suppose That's all I'm getting, right?"

"Right, and now get up to the office, team's got something for you."

"Now?", Abby asks, silently wondering why on earth people again and again had to get themselves killed, abducted, or God knew what else on _Friday evening_ out of all the times of the week they had at their disposal.

"Yeah, now", Gibbs replies, getting up from his chair. "I'll be with Ducky."

"Okay, bossman." She shrugs off her white coat and elegantly flicks it onto a hook on the wall. "Don't go home without saying bye, right?", she calls back over her shoulder on her way out.

"Yes, mum." Her laughter rings through the lab before the slide doors shut it out.

Three minutes later, the elevator's good-natures _bling_ releases Abby into the squad room, and she bounces past a happy-looking Agent Balboa who wishes her a nice weekend before the takes her place in the elevator.

In the middle of the office, Abby finds Tony and McGee both busily typing away on their computers, and Kate gazing out of the window at a grey evening.

Grey, but at least dry.

The 24th is the first day this year that passed without precipitation this February. There's been snow, sleet, hail, rain, and everything in between, just as though someone up in the heavens felt like sampling the whole gloomy-wet-weather-panoply, and did so very thoroughly.

Kate looks undecided whether she should like the fact that nothing's falling down from the sky at the moment, or be irritated about the prospect of (according to the forecast) another weekend without sun.

Noticing Abby approach them, however, her face lights up in a smile and she gives her a small wave to say hi.

"Hey gang", Abby greets everyone, out of habit taking up a post on a low file cabinet behind Kate's desk. "What's up?"

"Nothing much", her friend replies. "Basically getting ready to leave." As if that's her cue, she closes the last file on her desk and turns to stow it away.

Abby groans and practically drapes herself over the partition that shields Kate's desk from the printer and fax of the second office section. "And what's so damn important that it can't wait for _me_ until next week as well?"

Kate casts a glance over her shoulder at Tony, who quirks and eyebrow and shrugs his shoulders. "Don't know, Abs", he says. "What is?"

The lab tech fixates him with her gaze thoughtfully. "Hm, no, Tony", she states after a while. "That _is_ my question to ask, not yours. So spit it out: what've you got for me?"

"What makes you think we've got something?", comes McGee's voice from his desk.

" 'Cause Gibbs told me. He sent me up to you just now."

The three agents exchange questioning glances. "We don't have anything." Kate tells her after everyone's assured themselves that they didn't miss anything.

"And if we did", Tony adds, "we wouldn't say it. It's Friday evening."

Abby teasingly cocks a disapproving brow at him. "Just when did you develop this attitude towards your job, Anthony? You don't have that from Gibbs."

She grins as Tony sticks his tongue out at her, and Kate rolls her eyes.

"Honestly", she says in an attempt to bring some maturity back into the conversation, "there's nothing for you to do here, Abby." She seems to ponder the whole thing for a moment. "Unless we don't know it yet as well, that is."

Abby purses her lips and frowns.

"Where is Gibbs?", Tony asks, and the lab tech just replies: "Ducky."

"Well, maybe he just…", Tony begins, making funny swirling movements with his hand, as if he wanted to coax his brain into producing some usable explanation.

The whole process is interrupted by something behind the girls' backs, however, something that actually causes Tony's mouth to drop slowly open.

While the others watch their obviously astounded team mate, probably waiting for a bright green writing to appear on his forehead and tell them what's causing so much fascination in him, Kate realizes that there suddenly is an unusual amount of quiet laughter around them.

She and Abby turn around just when McGee stands up from his chair to get a better view.

All three of them end up in much the same open-mouthed state as Tony.

By now, they've all been doing this job for long enough to be forearmed against pretty much everything, and if something happens to really catch them unawares, they usually can mask that well.

_This_, however, is clearly beyond both their experience and their acting skills. As it is beyond pretty much every one else's here, it seems.

Then again, you can't really blame them. Who would expect a fully-fledged, round-bellied Santa Clause shuffling though a federal building on a Friday afternoon, the 24th of February?

He's just dragged a big, brown bag out of the elevator and now pauses for a moment, either to gather some breath or to study with intense fascination the mechanism of the silver doors closing. A moment later, it becomes clear that it probably were the doors that enthralled him, because he swings his bag over his shoulder with a merry giggle and a winks at the digital numbers above the elevator.

Obviously having marvelled enough, he starts making his way over to the three gaping agents and a no less gaping Goth.

His suit is a perfect cranberry red, lined with fur that's just as snowy as his beard, and he's wearing a hat with a fluffy bobble that keeps swinging to and fro in front of his eyes as he walks.

By now, everyone else in the office have abandoned their work, willingly risking half an hour more in Headquarters for the sake of this peculiar display.

Santa sets down his bag, huffs alarmingly, and surveys the team for a few moments from underneath bushy eyebrows. "Ho ho," he grumbles after a while, "Abigail, Caitlin, Anthony and Timothy! That's you, right?"

They all nod mutely.

Even after a few moments of calculating silence, only Tony seems to be able to find his voice. "Did you kill someone?", he asks flatly in an attempt to make sense of this person's presence here, and Santa Clause is momentarily confused. His dark, beady eyes blink a few times. "Anthony, what did your parents tell you about me?", he asks after a while, and Tony frowns. "Uh…"

"Anyway. Glad I found you." Santa opens his bag and begins rummaging about in it, meanwhile going on in his low, raspy voice: "I am horribly late, I know. Very sorry about that. Never happened before and-", he looks up and twinkles at them, much in the same way as he did to the elevator numbers, "will never happen again. I won't start explaining now, though, you won't believe it anyhow."

He huffs again as he digs deeper into his bag, downy white beard fluttering with each violent exhale.

"What day is it?" he asks as his head comes up again, sounding quite breathless.

Kate, finally regaining some of her composure, glances at her watch. "The 24th", she says, and Santa straightens and looks at her. "I mean what day of the week, Caitlin dear."

"Oh." Kate frowns. "Friday."

"Ah, good. You have to forgive me, with all that darkness at my home, I usually lose track of time." He dives back into his bag and Abby whispers: "Where is his home?"

"Why, Abigail," Tony whispers back, "at the North Pole, of course. What did _your _parents tell you about Santa Clause?"

Abby shrugs. "Do I look like someone who heard a lot of Christmas stories as a child?"

"Only the ones about the Grinch, huh?", Tony enquires, and the Goth smirks.

"I like the Grinch!"

They all turn their attention back to Santa when he gives a triumphant "Ha!", and brings forth a few bottles of champagne. He looks at them and smirks. "So you do not have to work tomorrow, do you?"

They shake their heads.

He smiles a very satisfied smile and transfers the bottles into Abby's arms. "Take those, dear, will you?"

Abby grins. "Happily."

"So," Santa says, "my book told me you were very good agents last year." He makes and apologetic gesture. "I hope you won't bear me a grudge for not bringing it, it's just so big and heavy. And I have a bad tennis arm."

Opposite from Kate, Tony's beginning to have trouble suppressing his laughter. _How the hell do you play tennis at the North Pole?_ Or maybe it is true and Santa Clause does spend the summer months in Florida.

Unperturbed by Tony's amusement, Santa goes on: "Anyway, let me tell you this." He turns to the girls with a festive expression on his chubby, pink-cheeked face. "Caitlin: Who would have thought you'd make such a fine interrogator? You're a good agent, just keep going. Abigail: Just stay as you are. There's nothing more to ask for. Timothy: You're doing better than you think most of the time. Go on, you'll be surprised where it'll get you. And Anthony: You may have had a tough time, but, again, there's nothing more one could have asked for. You did everything right."

There's a moment of silence, then Santa Clause's face breaks into the brightest smile. "Very well!", he declares, and fishes in his bag some more, eventually producing a few containers of ice cream.

Tony finds his arms full of them a moment later, staring at them quite perplexed.

He's visibly having trouble deciding what he finds more astounding: the things Santa just said to them or the champagne and ice cream.

"Wonderful," Santa exclaims merrily. "Enjoy! Oh – and stay good." He twinkles at them again, picks up his bag and before anyone can say a word, he's vanished into the elevator.

For a few moments, the team stand there open-mouthed, then Kate slowly asks:

"What happened?"

Abby grins. "I think Tony might have mentioned something about that Christmas party we didn't get last year." She sets down the bottles safe for one and promptly stars peeling away the aluminium wrapping of the cork. Softly, she says: "I love you, Gibbs."

_And that's it!! Thank you so much for reading, and especially for reviewing!_


End file.
